


Covered In The Colors, Pulled Apart At The Seams

by This_world_of_beautiful_monsters



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW Comics), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bad Parent Splinter, Body Horror, Brainwashed Sex, Canonical Child Abuse, Choking, Depression, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, Evil Turtles, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced T-Cest, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Limb Consumption, Loss of An Arm, M/M, Mind Games, Multi, Mutism, Necrophilia, People Eating, Polyamory, Revenge for rape, Self-Cannabalism, Self-Harm, Tongue Sex, Tongue Washing, Touch of Toxic Masculinity, Unresolvable Morality Debates, fear toxin, semi-fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:14:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29542893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_world_of_beautiful_monsters/pseuds/This_world_of_beautiful_monsters
Summary: Stories about love, colors, and general awfulness/strangeness.
Relationships: Alopex/Angel Bridge, Casey Jones/Raphael (TMNT), Donatello & Leonardo & Michelangelo & Raphael & Splinter (TMNT), Donatello & Leonardo & Michelangelo & Raphael (TMNT), Donatello & Leonardo (TMNT), Donatello & Michelangelo (TMNT), Hamato Yoshi & Oroku Saki, Hamato Yoshi/Tang Shen, Implied Karai/Shredder, Implied Renet/Michelangelo, Karai & Shredder (TMNT), Karai & Splinter (TMNT), Karai/Leonardo/Shinigami (TMNT), Leatherhead/Michelangelo (TMNT), Leonardo/Tiger Claw (TMNT), Michelangelo/Rahzar (TMNT), Oroku Saki/Tang Shen, Rahzar/Tiger Claw, one-sided Donatello/April O'Neil
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	1. Tongues And Blushes (Pink)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deceptive love.

Tiger Claw always licks him clean after missions, clearing away sweat, blood, semen, and the scent of others away with brisk sweeps of his tongue. He maneuvers Leo as he sees fit, carefully bending and lifting him like a doll. He strips Leo as he works, dropping his gear besides the bed to be cleaned later.

It's nice enough, Leo supposes, especially when the teasing flicks between his legs build into something stronger, something that triggers a hot wave of pleasure in his tummy. Tiger Claw is gentler than the men Shredder occasionally sends him to serve, his furry paws soft and precise on Leo's frequently bruised body. There is no rough exploration here, only the sense of a man carefully savoring a fine meal.

 _But you are still being eaten,_ a little voice whispers in Leo's head, disappearing before he can get a good grip on it. His head throbs, the old scar behind his eye throbbing (he thinks it's old, anyway, he doesn't have such a good sense of time).

He's distracted by his tail _fwipping_ in Tiger Claw's grip and he squirms, churring softly. "Hold still, cub," Tiger Claws says, but there's a smile in his voice, the kind Leo never hears outside the bedroom.

Leo's hoisted up by the shell and shivers as air is blown over his most intimate parts. Tiger Claw chuckles, low and deep, the sound thrumming through Leo's bones.

"You're so _pink,"_ Tiger Claw murmurs, almost to himself. "Like candy." His tongue darts once, twice, and Leo lets out a little squeak.

Squeaks are forbidden outside this room, outside this soft little place of candles and pillows. Out there, Tiger Claw's soft fur is overcome by his fists and claws; he gives no quarter in the dojo or the battlefield, anymore than he gets from Master Shredder.

Out there, Leo is a silent creature made of steel and bone, waging bloody war against his enemies (enemies whose faces never quite come together in his mind). He's silent for punishments, for training sessions, for cold hours on Doctor Stockman's table, silent when he's told to let cold-eyed men choke or split him with their flabby white cocks and silent when he's told to kill them.

In here, though, sound is permitted, even encouraged. Tiger Claw likes drawing noises from his little cub, likes making him quiver and blush and moan. Like now, when his mix of lapping and sucking is dragging Leo along the edge, while furry fingers rub and pet every inch of his body.

That tongue slips deep, deep, filling him in a way no human tongue can, wiggling all warm and wet. Leo yelps, limbs flailing, shoving away the distant urge to _fight fight run run._

He gets feeling like that, sometimes, both in and out of the bedroom, but he doesn't know where it comes from and is too ashamed to mention it to anyone. He wishes it would go away, tries to lose himself in the sense of being filled.

Nows being lowered, brought face-to-face with Tiger Claw's massive, already rigid cock. Leo braces his palms on Tiger Claw's thighs and gets to work, kissing and nibbling and kneading the way Tiger Claw likes it. He feels himself approaching the edge and digs his fingers into his palms to keep from spilling over, the way Tiger Claw taught him

He sucks a little at the tip and is rewarded with a small squirt of precome, warm and salty sweet. Leo's grateful that's he isn't being asked to deep throat tonight, an activity that leaves his throat aching for days on end.

So far Tiger Claw's been forbidden to penetrate Leo completely, on the not-too-unreasonable excuse that it would take him out of commission for far too long. He's settled for rutting against him, carefully poking in just the tip (painful enough on its own), the aforementioned blowjobs, brisk finger fucking, or the tongue that's just now being drawn out of him, leaving Leo clenched and aching, needy and wet.

"Louder, cub," Tiger Claw purrs. "Let me _hear_ you." He shoves back and Leo lets himself be heard, reminds himself how grateful he is to be taken care of like this, how gentle Tiger Claw is, how his _hands shouldn't shake so why are they shaking?_

Tiger Claw told him that when the rat and his soldiers are dead, he'll _finally_ be permitted to stick it all the way in. "You won't be able to walk straight for a _month_ ," he'd said, smiling. Leo had blushed and giggled at that, like he was supposed to be, trying to ignore the odd little jump of nausea in his belly.

That talented tongue is pushing harder now, flicking his prostate with every stroke, and Leo redoubles his own efforts in return. This is a reward, he reminds himself, his legs flexing in the air as Tiger Claw brings him closer to the edge. He presses his mouth to the tip and _churrs,_ sending vibrations up his length.

He still's there when the feelings in his stomach flicker white-hot and he's spasming, gasping. A few minutes later Tiger Claw's coming, painting Leo's face and mouth with milky white. He sucks in a breath through his nose, trying not to choke--he's gagged and thrown up before, and although he wasn't physically punished the look of sheer disappointment in Tiger Claw's eye made his belly clench (made his head throb).

They lie there for a few seconds, panting, and then he's being lifted yet again, dangling upside down as Tiger briskly licks the cum from his face. Their lips meet and Leo hollows his cheeks as a massive tongue slips into his mouth, filling it with even more spunk, claiming every inch of him.

 _"Aishiteru,"_ Tiger Claw whispers, lowering Leo back on to his big soft stomach, pulling his head up under his chin. _Love you._ His dark eye studies Leo careful, his bare wrinkled socket flexing a little in the low light.

"I love you too," Leo says. Because's that what love is, isn't it? Love is being with someone who makes you feel good, letting them do whatever they want to you. Maybe Tiger Claw will hurt him later on, both in and out of the dojo, but that doesn't matter because he loves Leo. He'll forgive Leo when he has to sleep with other people and he'll be righteous in his punishments and he'll _care_ and that'll be more affection than anything Leo can remember.

There's an abyss in his head and whispers come out of it sometimes, saying that this isn't love, that love is laughter and kindness and understanding, that love is bigger than this. Leo doesn't think about that too much. ~~It hurts if he tries~~.

He lets himself sinking into the soft rise and fall of Tiger Claw's stomach. Sometimes Tiger Claw will talk in the aftermath, talking about his childhood and his sisters, his adventures as a young ninja, but now he just mumbles something about taking a bath later and closes his eyes. His arm curls around Leo's shell, pulling him close, keeping him safe and warm.

Leo closes his eyes and goes to sleep. He doesn't remember his dreams.

Later, when the scar on his forehead has grown enough to brush his left eye (a small price to pay for freedom), Leo stands in the shower and scrubs, scrubs, scrubs until a breath of air makes his skin sting. He cuts himself, filling the tub with pink froth, but he's not good about cleaning it up up and his brothers take his blades away.

They hug him, pull him close, tell him that it's not his fault what the Foot made him do. He wonders if they would say that if he knew the true depth of his shame.

He sits on the bed, studying the pink scars on his wrists, hugging himself as if that could erase strewn entrails and the grunts of men whose names he can't remember and Tiger Claw, always Tiger Claw. He hugs himself tight, buries himself behind a tangle of green limbs and too-fragile mental walls.

All that's left, he thinks, is to get better, or at least pull on the appearance of getting better so his brothers will let him go to war again. Tiger Claw is still out there, after all.

And Leo can think of _so_ many things they can still do together. Things are least one of them will enjoy.


	2. Candle Flames And Old Wounds (Yellow)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The love of fathers and sisters.

Karai kneels in the dojo, eyes fixed on the candle flames, not meeting her father's--her real father's--eyes. She is perfectly poised, perfectly composed, just the way she used to be before Shredder's punishments.

Splinter hasn't beaten her yet (that's why he's still alive). But the weight of his eyes on her hurt nonetheless, even though she's not that sorry for what she's done. Especially because she's not sorry.

The turtles are in the main room, stitching each other's wounds and settling in for the TV. They've got it turned it up louder than usual, either to cover the fact that they're not talking talking or so they don't have to risk eavesdropping on this conversation.

"You killed three men tonight," her father says.

"Yes." She's got the blood-soaked weapons to prove it, after all, not to mention the weight of their guts in her belly. She didn't mean to _eat_ them, not exactly, but she's more effective when her snake side is in full control and it just...happened. Leo was the only one who got a clear view, but for better or worse she's discovered Leo will forgive her for pretty much anything.

She doesn't call Splinter _Father._ She doesn't say _I've killed a lot more._ She doesn't say _At least they deserved it this time._ She just sits there and waits, watching the candle dance.

"When you came here, I had faith that you would uphold my rules. And one of the most important, the one I have taught my sons since they could _walk,_ is that preservation of life is the most important thing. You may hunt, if you must, you may fight to defend yourself, but you do not _kill."_

"Why?" she asks, looking up at him. The candlelight dances on his face, winking as his eyes widen in surprise.

"Why? What good has killing ever brought to anyone? My father--my family--lost _everything_ because of the blood on our hands."

"I'm not your father," Karai reminds him. "I don't bring the children of the people I killed into my _home."_ He tenses at that and she wonders if this is where he lashes out, tries to discipline her with a nerve pinch or a blow from the stick the way he does his other children--but no, this is too serious a matter for such things. Resorting to violence would only give her the moral advantage.

Instead he takes a deep, slow breath and straightens. "I understand that you are used to a certain....way of doing things from your time with Saki, but we are _better_ here. We _strive_ to be better. Sometimes we leave wreckage in our wake, but we do not leave _bodies."_

Karai bites down a sudden urge to snicker. "So that's what you're worried about? Ending up like Saki? Because let me tell you, you'd have to do a lot more to get anywhere _near_ his level." _Fuck your kids, for one._ "I don't think you understand how low a bar you're dealing with here."

"Do not be flippant, Miwa," her father says, a hint of a growl in his words. _Miwa._ Her name, but also the name of a dead girl, a legacy. She remembers O'Neil offering her the Tessen that Splinter had put aside for his daughter, and the look of swiftly-hidden relief on her face when Karai said no.

What is it like, to wield a weapon meant for a ghost? What was it like for the turtles, growing up under Miwa's shadow? Was it better or worse than growing up under Tang Shen's?

Aloud, she asks, "You're going to kill Saki, aren't you? How is this any different?"

Splinter shakes his head. "That is unavoidable--tonight's carnage was _not._ The men you killed tonight had friends, lovers, perhaps children. Do you not care for their grief?"

 _I used to, until Saki beat it out of me._ "I decided that their grief wasn't as important as what I would feel if we lost."

"You could have gotten out of there without bloodshed. My sons have done it many times before." _Before you arrived to mess things up,_ he doesn't need to say.

"And there were times when they _didn't."_ Karai points out. "The construction site, Technodrome, me and my stupid death traps....they never take the opportunity to kill their enemies, and sometimes those enemies come back to do terrible things to them. Killing them reminds people that we're serious, that they should be careful before they start this sh--stuff in the first place."

"And in the way you did it? Coming home covered in blood does not signal a clean kill, Karai." _Fuck._ She was hoping he wouldn't have picked up on that, but apparently that nose of his is as sharp as his children say.

"It reminds them who they're dealing with," Karai says. 

Splinter raises an eyebrow. There is disappointment in his eyes, she thinks but also worry--worry and love, things that scare her more than disappointment. She wonders if the feelings scare him in return; she remembers how terrified she was when she first realized how much she loves the turtles, and even O'Neil and Jones, how much she would do to keep them safe.

She sighs. "You've got them thinking that they're superheroes or cops, that knocking people out and hanging them from lampposts someone means they're going to face justice. But you've said yourself that we're at _war,_ and wars require casualties."

"Are you saying I should have raised my sons as killers? Because you would have been one of their first victims." Her first instinct is to answer _Maybe,_ even though she knows that's the wrong answer for so many reasons.

It's not like Karai wants to die. It's just...Saki unleashed an alien invasion in her name, an invasion that left an entire city reeling and traumatized, not to mention the people who actually died _._ It's just that she's done terrible things, and will continue to do terrible things, both under and out from Saki's control. It's just that it's hard to tell what would change, who would be saved, if the girl who was the catalyst for so much of it died before it could happen.

Now she wants to live, if only to make up for what she's done by protecting the people who've wormed their way into their heart. But if she had a chance to keep them from needing in her the first place, to stop all this chaos....she doesn't know what she'd do.

She doesn't say this aloud, can't. Instead she says, "I don't want them to be killers." (she's not sure that's going to be her choice, particularly in Leo's case, but she has to try) "I want them to have a killer on their side, someone to send dirty messages and make sure that all the bad things that have happened before don't repeat themselves."

"We don't need an assassin," Splinter says, lifting his chin, so sure of himself.

"Yes, we do," Karai says firmly. "Shredder doesn't want you slapped around or scared stiff, he wants us _gone._ It's time to start treating him the same way."

 _He wants you worse than gone,_ she could say. _He likes to talk about all the terrible things he'll do to your children when you're dead,_ she could say. _Torture. Rape. Mutilation. Passing them around like party favors._

 _He'd ask me for ideas, sometimes, when we were in bed together,_ she could say. _And I'd give them to him so he'd be happy._ _Those traps of mine were kind compared to what could have happened._

She doesn't say any of that. She doesn't want to know how he'll react (although she has a pretty good idea).

Her father shakes his head. "Will you continue doing this, then? Taking lives in the name of the Hamato clan?"

"Yes," Karai replies, not wanting to fuck around with a _maybe._ "Are you going to kick me out?" Her heart shivers just a little at that, even though she can provide somewhere else to crash. But it's the principle that matters, the idea of being separated from the Hamatos again after they've spent so much time trying to get back to each other.

Splinter seems to be thinking the same thing. He sighs, folding his hands. "I do not know, Miwa. I want to help you, but if you insist on not being helped...I do not want to go in circles on this, either." He settles back into a crosslegged position. "I will meditate on this, try to find a position that suits both of us. You may go join your brothers."

Karai knows a dismissal when she hears one--knows, too, that there is no position that will suit them. Although who knows, maybe Splinter will somehow find a way to let her stick around without compromising his values too badly.

He wants the best for her, after all. Just like she wants best for her family, even if her idea of "what's best" involves eating men's faces, and his involves letting those same men live long enough to potentially hunt them down and kill them all.

 _But we both want to stay together,_ she reminds herself. _There's hope for us yet. There should be, anyway._

She rises and bows before walking away, leaving Splinter with his candle and his thoughts. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does it count as cannabalism if a shapeshifting snake mutant eats people? Discuss.


	3. Ash And Smoke And Morals (Grey)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love among shadows and soldiers.

Shinigami dreams of smoke. Not of light or heat; for some reason the fire the missionaries built comes off as gray and colorless in her dreams, nothing like the merry blazes she's created for herself. It's the smoke that dominates her memories; smoke, and the searing pain on her ankles and calves.

She's had the dreams long enough not to scream when she wakes up, fists tangled in the sheets and heart pounding. Someone still hears her, anyway.

"Bad dream?" Leo says, peering at her over Karai's head. She lies between them in mid shift (she has a habit of waking up a different species than when she went to bed, something that she bitches about while they find it adorable), black hair striking against white scales.

"I need a cigarette," Shini mumbles in reply, snatching a match from her bedside table and rolling off the bed. The smell of smoke is sure to wake Kara up, and she doesn't sleep enough as it is, so Shini heads into the main room. She plops down by a window--she's not awake enough to remember whose place they're staying in, but they've got a surprisingly decent view for New York--and lights up.

"You shouldn't smoke," Leo says, because of course he's followed her on those silent ninja feet of his.

"I'm immortal. I've been smoking these things for a literal century and it hasn't killed me yet." Shini wriggles her legs, ancient scars flexing beneath her sleep shirt. "Besides, it reminds me not to be scared of the flames."

Leo sits down besides her with a sigh, the light from outside casting his shadow across the floor. And just his shadow. "Tell me," he says, "Were you projecting a fake shadow when we met or did I just not notice?"

"Both, probably," Shini replies. "If it makes you feel any better Karai didn't notice for a while, either. People expect shadows, after all. And I _do_ have one..." She wriggles her fingers and darkness coils over them, before flicking back into her nails. "....It just prefers to live inside me."

They sit there for a few minutes, the only sound the soft hiss of smoke from between Shini's teeth. She turns to dip her ashes out the window, narrowing her eyes. "I think there's still firetrucks around Hun's place."

Leo stiffens. "Really?"

"It's fine, Kappa, they've got it contained. See?" She points, and they watch the blaze slowly flicker out of existence.

Leo sighs, weaving his fingers together. His nails still have a bit of blood under them from last night's work and she reminds herself to show him to properly clean them later. His hands flex and clench, as if remembering a sword's hilt.

Shini narrows her eyes. "You were up thinking about those people, weren't you?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. It was just....it was so _easy_ to hurt them, to not think about it until afterwards. I didn't expect it to be that easy. And I didn't expect their bodies to go up that quickly when we lit the match." He hugs himself. "Guess I'm just not used to this."

Shini's not sure what to say to that. She's never really worried about the people she killed, not since the day her mother knelt in front of her with missionary blood on her hands and fresh bones woven into her hair, telling her about the importance of ruthlessness in a world where some people want the monsters dead at all costs.

So she just pulls Leo into a side-hug and strokes his scalp. "You get used to it," she says. "It's not a nice path you're walking, but you learn to love the thorns and stones."

"If you say so," Leo says, folding into her side. He looks so small without his armor, fragile and vulnerable, a pretty impressive trick to pull off considering that he's a pile of inhuman green msucles. Shini might even be fooled if she hadn't seen him snap one man's neck with bare hands or break another's ribs with a well-placed kick.

"I know so," Shini tells him, rubbing his shoulder with one hand before puffing with the other.

"I caught Karai trying to pour your tea down the garbage disposal, by the way," he says after a while. "She said that she'd much rather live with the headaches than "endure that icky monstrosity." And yes, I told her you were flavoring it with sugar."

Shini groans. "Seriously? That stuff doesn't grow on trees--well, it _does,_ but not trees around here _._ And I'm _not_ a pharmaceutical company--I can't get the sweeteners perfect on the first go."

"I know," Leo says, patting her hand soothingly. "We'll just have to keep a closer eye on her from now on."

Their eyes flick to the opened bedroom door as if on cue, where the girl they're already keeping such a very sharp eye on still sleeps. Karai. Their kuniochi, their lamia, their warrior queen. The girl who stumbled into their lives, tried to kill them both on several occasions, played hell with their hearts, and now has a death grip on their souls.

Beautiful, broken, toxic Karai, turning Shini's love for destruction and Leo's desperate need to protect his family, even if his family doesn't agree with the methods (and his own quiet need for revenge), into a fucked-up lover's crusade. They've both wreaked havoc in their name and they'll probably do a lot more of it before this war is over. If it's ever over.

"Look at our pretty little monster," Shini says, as they watch a shifting tail slowly poke out from under the blankets. "Great, now it feels like we're her parents. That's creepy."

Leo tenses, and she instantly wants to take it back. They've both gathered bits and pieces about Karai's relationship with her first parental figure, about the ugly things Shredder did to her in the night hours. They both suspect it's why she never complains too much when Leo's shell digs into her skin or Shini's hair spills into her face, that she likes the reminders of how very different they are, physically as well as mentally, from _him._

"Donnie's got another Purple Dragons location," Leo says, changing the subject quickly. "He sent it right before we...um...got busy."

Shini smirks. "'Got busy?' You're such a _hypocrite,_ Kappa. The shy routine doesn't work with me, remember? I've still got bites to prove it." Leo blushes; they're all very toothy in bed, to be honest, but they like to pretend he's the worst.

"How is he?" she asks.

"Good. You know, he's...dealing. Sensei hasn't figured it out, thank god." Donatello isn't ready to get his hands dirty, but he's still providing information for their crusade, calling himself the "Oracle to their Birds of Prey," which is a apparently a reference to some American comic book. He's also the only who arranges for Leo to hang with his brothers in secret, away from their father (and sometimes away from Raph, too).

"The others are doing good, too," Leo says. "Mikey's not happy about it, but he--we all agreed to keep the full extent of things from him. And Raph's safe, at least, even if he doesn't want to talk."

"He'll come around," Shini promises, rubbing his head. "It might take until Shredder is actually dead for him to get it, but he'll get it."

"I hope so," Leo murmurs, leaning into her touch.

What they have isn't quite as fierce as their feelings for Karai, but there's a strength to it, too, Shini thinks, something that grew out of the spillover from loving their lamia. Leo is one of the few people she's met in her very long life who manages to be tender without being breakable, and there's something valuable that. She thinks she'll keep him.

Shini finishes her cigarette and watches the flames flicker across her nails for a heartbeat, the tattoos on her wrists glowing as they absorb the heat. She catches Leo staring at her with wide eyes and smirks. "I love that I can still amaze you," she says, waggling her fingers like a magician. Leo giggles--he'd probably say it was a more manly chuckle, but she's on to him and Karai, she knows _exactly_ what a giggle sounds like.

There's a soft groan from the bedroom, and the sound of Karai rustling around, her tail growing even longer. Shini sighs, tossing her cigarette in the trash. "Wanna go keep our sweet princess company?"

Leo rolls her eyes even as he takes her hand and they stand up. " _Don't_ call her that, it's giving me flashbacks to Donnie's crush on April...."


	4. Bloody Kisses And Fierce Hearts (Red)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love that uses sharp objects to defend itself.

You step out of school and there's a cop waiting on the front steps. "Mr. Jones?" he asks.

In an way, you've been waiting for this for a long time. You wait for him to tell you about the body they fished out of the drink, or even from the wake of a passing car. A cold, ugly part is already plotting out funeral arrangements for one Arnold Jones, aka Hun, trying to remember who you can invite without breaking somebody's parole restrictions.

So when the cop puts his hand on his shoulder and says, "I'm sorry, son, your dad's been killed," it doesn't process. And than it does, in all the worst ways.

You ask how they died, and they say his throat was slit. Not stabbed, the way it was more likely to have gone down if it was a fight over a bottle or with a mentally ill person (or a monster in armor). Slit. That means precision, that suggests skill.

They bring you to identify the body, sheet carefully pulled up to the neck. Your father's eyes are closed, his face stiff, and you wondered whether it were twisted with fear when they found him. You wonder if he saw the attacker, ~~if the attacker let himself be seen.~~

They question you--not harshly, you've got an alibi, after all, you were at a hockey game (only a few people knew you were going to be there, knew you would be safe). They mainly want to know if you can think of anyone who would do this.

 _I can think of him,_ you don't say. _I can think of the color of his eyes, the sound of his voice, the look on his face when I showed him how to take a hot shower for the first time. I can tell you about his favorite cereal, about the music he listens to when no one's around, about the little noises he makes when he tries to keep his brothers from overhearing us._

_I can tell you what it feels like to be inside him, what his cock tastes like. I can tell you what's it like when he gets drunk and dances, how happy he looks, how he's stripped off his stuff like a private show and then made me feel so much better than a private show ever could, how he carried me to bed once and I let him._

_I can tell you he's not human, but he feels more than most humans I know. I can tell you how beautiful and terrible he looks when he goes to battle, knives and fists flashing. I can tell you that he's named for an artist, and an angel. I can tell you that the day we met he broke into my house and I thought he was going to kill my dad, and maybe that never went away._

You don't say any of these things, and not just because the person you're thinking of doesn't exist in any official capacity. Eventually you leave, tired, lost, mind wandering. You can't call Angel, can't hear her try and fail to sound sympathetic. She hated your dad as much as _he_ did, if not more.

So instead you go and wait at your preferred meeting spot, watching the cars blur past, thinking of his green hands dabbing at the bruises left by your father's fists, of the ugly expression he could never quite hide at the sight of them. You think of watching him twirl his sai, practicing brutal movies on dummies when his brothers and sensei weren't looking. At the time, you were impressed.

 _I'll get to the bottom of this,_ you promise yourself. Chances are that if you ask him, he'll have a perfectly good alibi, too. Right?

When he emerges from the shadows, you feel a pair of sudden, warring instincts to punch him or kiss him. Your eyes flicker to his sai and as he steps into the light, you see them dripping with blood for a half-second.

"What's up, Case?" Raph asks.

"My dad's dead," you say, without preamble.

"Really?" He smirks, a sight that's as ridiculously sexy as it ever was. "Wanna get some bottles, celebrate?"

And just like that, all your careful plans to interrogate him with subtlety and caution go out the window. You're slamming him against the wall in a heartbeat, even as a distant part of your mind warns that he's at his most dangerous in close quarters.

"Did you do it?" you ask, and his breath catches ever so slightly. Maybe we can never know the ones we love, but _you_ know what they sound like when they're caught.

"Case, I don't--"

"Don't _lie_ to me," you order, growl, beg, whatever. "Don't." And then, because Raph's still there staring at you with a mask of fear and confusion. "Please."

Just like that, his face relaxes, his muscles uncoil, his leg presses up against yours. "Casey," he says. "Dude, it's okay."

And that--that _confirmation,_ tips the world out from underneath you, and you realize how much you were hoping, deep down, that you were wrong. That you hadn't fallen in love with a killer, that your dad wasn't murdered in your name.

"Okay?" you gasp out, shaking your head. "My dad's dead, and you--you _butchered_ him in the street, I'm an orphan now--"

"You were an orphan long before the old man kicked the bucket," Raph says, rubbing your back in soothing circles.

 _No son of **mine** is a fucking faggot, _your father growls in your head. You try to shove it away. "He--he was sick, all right? He couldn't stop drinkin' and, and...And my mom _told_ me to look after him, I _swore..."_

Raph raises an eye ridge. "Parents are s'posed to look after their kids, not the otha way around. If your mom really believed that she musta been trippin' on the morphine."

You hit him for that. Hard. His head bounces off the concrete with a _thud_ , and you can't quite stop yourself from flinching at the sound.

"Sorry," he mutters, blood sparking on his lips. "That was outta line."

You laugh, high and insane. " _That's_ outta line? Not murderin' my dad? Not bein' as bad as the killers we chase down?"

Raph's eyes flare, just for a second. "Those guys were goin' after people who didn't deserve it. Your dad--he was a _monster_." He squeezes your hand. "All he did was smack you around and belittle ya. You deserved better, Case."

You shake your head again, more frantic this time. "I was okay, I didn't need you to get _rid of him,_ I--I was _out of there."_

"But he was still followin' ya, wasn't he? Hurtin' ya, and thinkin' it made him a big tough man when all it proved was that ya were too brave to fight back." Raph's hand brushes your hip, still tender from when your dad shoved you into a post a few days ago. "He was goin' ta kill ya eventually, Case."

"He wouldn't." Your dad could be cruel, sometimes, and there were moments when you hated him. But he was also the guy who took you to your first hockey game, who played airplane with you when you were small, who kissed you and loved you and _cared_ , at least sometimes.

"He would," Raph says, leaning up against you so you can't look away. "Guys like him...drinking doesn't make 'em mean, just brings the meanness out." You think of your dad's hands on your throat, dragging your head back so far it felt like your neck would snap...but no. No.

"If he didn't kill ya, he woulda broke your spirit," Raph whispers, voice harsh with fury. "That's all he wanted--I couldn't see it, 'specially since he thought you might finally end up happy _._ He wasn't like any of the guys we fight, Case. He was _worse."_

"You're wrong," you say, hearing your voice shake and powerless to stop it. You shove him, and he goes down far too easily, something you don't notice until his hands land feather-soft against your thighs and he plants a kiss on your crotch. Your knees go week; your hand flies out, bracing itself against the wall.

"It's okay," Raph murmurs, slow and deep, a voice that you've never heard him use around anyone else, a voice reserved for _you._ "It's okay, _watashi no aoi._ It's all right." He tugs ever so gently on your belt loop, nibbling at your crotch with just a bit of teeth.

"Don't," you whisper. And then, before you can stop yourself, "Don't play me like that. I'm not a _j_ _ohn."_ Raph freezes, his hands going very still on your thighs.

 _H_ e's _a whore,_ your father told you once, looming over you after you crossed paths in yet another alley. _That's how he made it on the streets for so long, selling his ass. Guy who told me said that he could take four dicks at once. You really think you're satisfying that little bitch? You really think he's not fucking that freak family of 'is behind your back?_

You hadn't believed him. You'd snarled something vicious and bolted, trying as hard as you could to scrub the words from your mind. You'd forced yourself not to think about how confident Raph was in bed for a mutant turtle, how when Donnie had noticed you two getting close and insisted on testing you for STDS you hadn't even asked if Raph received the same treatment.

Raph looks up at you, eyes glittering, and your stomach twists. You expect him to scream at you, to push you away, and your stomach burns with shame. Then you tell yourself you shouldn't be worried about hurting his feelings, he _just killed your dad._ But you are.

When he speaks, his voice is surprisingly calm. "I did what I had to do to survive out there," he says, gaze burning into you. "And I'll do what's necessary to protect _you,_ too. Because you're mine, and I'm yours, and deep down you know you deserve betta than that piece of shit."

"No," you whispers, shaking your head. "No, no no _no...."_ You're a good person, you have morals, lines, you can't cross them, you _can't_ \--even if. Even if.....

_Shattered glass. Scars on your skin. Your mother's face, drawn and pale, long before the cancer ever took root, because hard as she tried she couldn't really fix him. Raph dancing with you in the same house where your father once choked you into unconsciousness. Both of you waking up screaming from different nightmares. Raph looking at your father as if he recognized him from every monster he'd met on the street...._

Raph presses a finger against your hip and you hiss in pain. "This is what he gives ya," he says. "This is _all_ he ever gives ya. I can give ya so much more, Case." He sighs, breath gentle against your skin. "And even if ya hate me forever, knowing he'll never touch ya again....I can live with that."

You believe him. You wish you didn't, wish your father was someone you could fight for, but it strikes you in a sudden burning wave that you should stop kidding yourself, _he wasn't._

You collapse to your knees with a soft groan. Raph kisses you and the taste of blood is still on his lips. You reach out, fingers shaking, and your hands brush the hilt of his sai. Once again you picture them slick with your father's insides, and the image scares you, but not as much as it should.

"It's okay," he murmurs, planting soft red kisses along your neck, marking you. "It's all right, Case, you're safe."

You shouldn't be letting this happen. You should be pushing him away, running for your life. You should be....should be....Raph kisses you on the collarbone, gentler than your father had touched you in your ears, and all your little protests fly away. You melt. You have no choice.

"I can be your monster," Raph whispers, gently lowering you onto your back. "I can fight _for_ ya, instead of against ya." His eyes flash into yours, so bright. You don't know how his brothers aren't swayed by them, how Leo ever wins a fight with him.

Your father voice hisses in your head about _fucking that freaky family_ and you grit your teeth, block it out. Raph is _yours,_ you know it in your bones, for better or for worse.

You grip him back and kiss him hard, drink the blood in his mouth. You wonder if it tastes anything like the blood in your father's, and like to pretend it's sweeter.

You are Casey Jones--hero, brawler, hockey player, vigilante, good son back when your family had a right to to one. But you've got a little of the monster in you, too. And here, under the stars with this fierce, beautiful turtle, you can finally let it out to play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watashi no ai - my love


	5. Tattered Skin And New Limbs (Green)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love in the aftermath of madness.

The  _ crunch _ of fingers in Leatherhead's mouth is loud, too loud, ringing through his hand and skull. He pulls his hand away and studies the blood stumps, dragging them against the filthy sewer wall. His tail  _ whaps  _ against unforgiving stone, regrowing before his very eyes.

_ You know, alligators can regenerate teeth _ , Donnie had told him once while removing a sore tooth (Mikey had sat on his lap and held his hand the whole way through, Mikey Mikey Mikey). But Leatherhead can regenerate so much more than teeth--and oh, his Kraang tormentors were  _ thrilled  _ to find that out.

They did their job too well, though; he's gotten used to pain. Missing scales and the taste of fingers in his mouth is nothing compared to what he endured in the past, and that's a bad thing. He wants to (has to) hurt right now.

Leatherhead flicks his wrist, sending red flying through the air in a crimson spray. The local rats are too scared to go anywhere near him, but maybe if he'll bleeds enough they'll be tempted....probably not, though, not with his luck. The skin is already regrowing, taunting him with rapidly darkening layers of green.

He screams, slamming his fist into the wall again and again as bones crack, shatter, fold in on themselves. Only they'll regrow, just like his teeth and his tail and the leg he gnawed off several hours ago. But Mikey....Mikey can't regrow _anything._

If he concentrates, he can almost hear the distant whine of the terrible machine the Foot used on him, the one that filled his mind with _white hot pain pain rage._ He'd lashed out, going after the shadows around him, because the only people who'd ever want to go near a monster like him must be trying to hurt him, remember?

He'd ripped one's arm off and swallowed it, chewing and spitting bones everywhere, _smiling_ through bloody teeth. Let them see what they'd wrought, let them see the beast they'd dared to tangle with, let them see a creature straight out of _hell._

And then someone had smashed the machine, and _he_ had seen. He'd seen Michelangelo, his love, his other half, the beautiful little bundle of energy who'd _believed_ in him when no one else dared, lying on the ground in a pool of blood, pale and still. Donatello and Leonardo had huddled over him while Raphael stood over them, sai raised and teeth bared, protecting his family from the monsters. Monsters like Leatherhead.

Leathered ran. There'd been no choice. Donnie has already tried exploiting the regenerative capabilities in his blood for medicine; it hadn't worked. He'd only make things worse by staying, and hadn't he done enough already?

He's not sure how long he's been done here--long enough to tear himself to pieces with his claws and see it grow back, long after to scream and cry and vomit and pass out, long enough to wake up and start it all over, long enough to discover fresh depths of self-loathing he'd never considered possible.

He wonders if Mikey's brothers will hunt him down later; he hopes so. Maybe if Leonardo cuts him up with those swords he'll finally get the penance he deser--

"LH?"

Leatherhead freezes. _No. No. Not real not real you're dead I murdered you I'm a monster monster monster._

"LH? Is that you?"

He wants to beg and cry for mercy from his own brain. But he asked to suffer, didn't he? And this--to hear a living, _forgiving_ Mikey call for him--is a more vicious torture than anything the Kraang could dream up.

"I....is that blood?" The impossible footsteps echo through the dark tunnel, growing nearer, ringing painfully loud. Leatherhead squeezes his eyes shut and turns away, not willing to look, to face the emptiness. "Are you okay?"

"You've been gone for _days_ , dude." Has it really been that long? The illusion thinks it is. "I came out here to look for you. Are you okay?"

 _Okay?_ Leatherhead bites back a spurt of hysterical laughter. _Why, yes, I'm fine and dandy. I'm digesting my own fingers and I just murdered the only person who ever loved me and I'm hearing voices while I unsuccessfully wait to bleed out. How are you, Mr. Hallucination?_

"LH, can you hear me?"

Leatherhead deserves to listen to this for hours, but he's a coward; he can't take it anymore. "I'm sorry," he whispers, letting the tears spill out of his eyes and flow into the blood. "I'm so sorry, I can't, I don't--you're not _real,_ please just...."

"Dude, did you hit your head? Of course I'm real--oh shit, is that _blood?_ _Fuck!_ " There's the buzz of a T-phone and Mikey yelling, his voice full of fear. "Donnie, it's me--yeah, I _know_ I snuck out, you need to get here now! LH's hurt!"

There's a rustle as the T-Phone's put away and not-Mikey comes even closer, close enough to--

"Don't!" Leatherhead wails, staggering away. "I--I'll _hurt_ you and you're not even _real_ and--"

"You'd never hurt me, Leatherhead," Mikey said, sounding far too sure. "Never. What you did, it wasn't you, it was those assholes messing with your head."

"But I _did_ hurt you," Leatherhead whispers, unreasonably angry at the hallucination for not getting it. "And I've hurt you before, and I'll hurt you again, except I _can't_ hurt you anymore because...because you're..."

"No," Mikey whispers firmly. "I am not dead and you have _never_ wanted to hurt me and you're _getting better,_ Leatherhead. I've seen it, over the years, and I am _not_ letting the Foot knock you back. What happened _sucks_ and it's gonna suck getting over it and maybe it'll never be perfect, but it'll be us and I need you, Leatherhead. I can't lose anyone else."

A hand touches Leatherhead's side, small and determined and alive _._ His heart skips a beat. "So, please, _look at me."_

Slowly, carefully, Leatherhead creaks his eyes and suck in a breath. "Michelangelo...."

And it's not a hallucination, it's _real_ , because Michelangelo is standing there looking up at him, blue eyes blazing with determination. But Leatherhead crashes to his knees anyway, because...

"Oh God, Mikey, your _arm."_ There's a soft white stump where it should be, because he _ate_ it--he--he--

"Breathe," Mikey whispers, grabbing Leatherhead's hand. "It's okay, just breathe. I...it freaked me out too, when I got it. But Donnie's gonna make me a new one and it'll be green like the rest of me and it'll be _so cool--"_

"But it--it won't be yours," Leatherhead sobs out.

"No," Mikey whispers, pulling close, letting his own tears fall. "But it'll be better. _We'll_ be better, Leatherhead. We _will."_ He lurches up on his toes, wrapping his arms around Leatherhead's massive neck. " _It wasn't you,"_ he repeats, voice a fierce whisper. "And I won't let the Foot keep me from loving you."

Leatherhead holds him tight and knows he'll never let go, not really, anymore than Mikey can or will let go of him. They need each other to keep from crumbling, after all.

They're still clinging to each other, still crying, still alive when the others come to find them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired in part by the IDW canon that Leatherhead basically has a healing factor.


	6. Fire And Flowers (Orange)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love that turns toxic.

Saki's five years old and he dreams of fire. He wakes up screaming, not knowing why, and curls up in his brother's arms. Yoshi pats his head and tells him that everything's fine, it was just a bad dream. His father sits by the bedside and doesn't say anything.

He's seven years old and he meets a girl with long black hair hanging to her waist, with bright eyes and a book full of sketches. He tells her he's going to marry her one day, back in the few bright hours before he brings her to meet his brother. She forgets his promise soon enough and he tells himself that he has, too.

When he's ten one of the shacks in the compound burns and his father blames him. He's given one of the worst beatings of his life, even though he wasn't anywhere near the blaze when it started. He blames Yoshi for years afterward, not that there's no proof that anyone burned the shack at all.

He, Shen, and Yoshi are twelve, lying in a field of flowers and talking about their dreams. The sun sets and the petals seems to catch fire, until it's as if they're sailing through an inferno. It scares him a little, not that he'd ever tell, and he squeezes Shen's hand. She squeezes back, but then he realizes she's squeezing Yoshi's, too.

He's thirteen, and a bad son--not smart enough, not skilled enough, not talented enough to match Yoshi and finally win his father's approval, and after his most painful losses he needs a way to punish himself. He sits in his room pressing the flame from a stolen lighter to his skin, the glow burning into his eyes. Eventually the smell of his own burning flesh forces him to go vomit, and he imagines Shen rubbing his back.

It's not the only punishment he inflicts himself on these days--he'll run until his heart blazes dangerously in his chest, he'll "accidentally" slice himself on sword blades, he'll starve himself or eat until he's sick, he'll pick fights with oversized opponents or brick walls. Later, he'll hate Yoshi and his father for forcing him to such extremes.

When he's fifteen he brings Shen a tiger lily, her favorite flower. He tucks it behind her ear and marvels at the way it blazes in her black hair like a star, at how soft the strands feel against his fingers, about the cool touch of her skin on his. She laughs and tells him thank you, gives him a kiss on the cheek. He allows himself to hope.

He's seventeen and whatever they have is crumbling before it can even begin. They fight about something, he can't remember what, but it's important. He grabs her wrists and squeezes, screaming at the top of his lungs. Her voice breaks off in a stutter, tears of fear and pain dripping down her cheeks, and he realizes too late what he's done.

Saki lets go, fingers shaking, begging for forgiveness he knows he won't get. She rears back and hits him, a blow he could easily dodge if he wasn't hypnotized by the venom in her voice and bruises forming on her wrists, damaging that perfect skin. She runs, leaving him alone.

Later on he finds an old shack and sets it on fire so he can scream his hatred for himself and everyone else at the flames, bright orange sparks burning into his head. He thinks about jumping in, but for whatever reason he doesn't.

He's eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and he and his brother are serving in Japan's Self-Defense Force, where they earn the names Splinter and Shredder. They both write letters to Shen, Saki primarily begging for forgiveness and Yoshi...he doesn't know what Yoshi's are about, and he doesn't want to know. He barely talks to his brother anymore these days.

They come home, and he still loves Tang Shen as painfully and passionately as he did when he was seven. She lets him back into her life, but not, as he soon discovers, into her heart. He watches her make love with Yoshi in the field where they all once lay in children, and the inferno in his head outshines the very sun.

Saki's still burning when he challenges Yoshi to what Tang Shen judges a meaningless fight ("We're not _animals,_ you don't have to fight over me like wild dogs!"). He's still burning when he staggers from their home, beaten and bloodied. Those who watch him go hope he'll find something to quench that fire, and perhaps deep down he feels the same.

He doesn't. Instead he enters a crucible where everything he's ever none is turned in on itself, where a heap of documents and a few police records reveal that's the heir to a massive fortune, and a blood-soaked legacy. His father is his kidnapper, his parents were murdered, and his brothers...his _brother...._ he's spent a lifetime in Yoshi's shadow, hating and punishing himself for every failure, when he should have outdone him long ago.

Saki burns an old photograph of himself with his family that night, singeing his fingertips black as it lights up in his hands. He stops hurting himself after that. He has so many other people to hurt instead, so many people to carve his self-loathing into instead of himself.

He goes home with an army of lost souls at his back, ready to prove to Tang Shen that she is the better one, the stronger one, that he always has been. She will see his rage as the gift it is, instead of something to fear. She _will._

She doesn't.

Everything burns. Including Saki.

He staggers through the house in a torrent of flames, blazing, screaming, dying. It is the worst agony he has ever felt, or ever will feel--his body will be physically incapable of feeling the same level of pain after this.

Through the fire he sees one of the monsters from the forest looking at him, eyes like chips of ice through that blue mask--then it's gone, and Saki isn't sure it was there at all.

And he doesn't care, because he's busy staggering for the ruins, smoking and burned enough he can't feel it anymore, looking for Tang Shen and Miwa. That's what heroes do, isn't it? The deposed prince, the conquering warrior, the man returned from a long and noble journey to slay his arch-foe...they look after the woman and children. They look after their _families._

He finds Miwa, screaming and squalling. He finds Tang Shen. She is....not doing either of those things.

Saki carries them both out of the house, Tang Shen over his shoulder and Miwa tucked up against his chest. _His_ family, now, not Yoshi's. Claimed with his own strength and skill, his _survival._

He lowers them both gently outside the ruins of the house. His future enemies are long gone, returned to their own time with fresh scars, and Yoshi is unconscious on the far side of the house, not that Saki knows either of these things. It's just him, little Miwa crawling around in the yard, and...Shen. Beautiful, dead Shen.

The right side of her face and most of the right of the side of her body are blackened to ash, her clothes burnt away to nothing behind her. A few sparks flicker in what's left of her hair, glinting orange like the tiger lily he gave her once upon a time.

He hates her, for what she's driven him to. He loves her, because she is Tang Shen, and because she is beautiful and kind and wise and everything he wanted for himself and from his brother.

His brain is full of smoke and no one will ever willingly touch him again and the baby's cries are splitting him open and he is _angry_ but he loves so much it _hurts_ and the grief for her (and his family, but he won't admit that) is grinding him to ash and she is finally _his_ and she is _dead--_

Saki doesn't know where the impulse to take out his cock comes from in that storm. He doesn't know when the last few walls break in his mind, filling it up with glass shards that will always be sharper and crueler than his claws.

All he knows is that he's suddenly thrusting away inside that ruined body, clawing at burned skin until it bleeds while at the same time pressing gentle kisses to what's left her neck. He spits the harshest vitriol and the most profound declarations of love into Shen's face, tears mixing in with the saliva.

"I hate you," he whispers. "Angel bitch whore temptress flower star I love you _why_ Mother Father Yoshi why was it always him why couldn't it ever be me why why _why...."_ Her wrist snaps in his hand and he barely notices. In her eye he sees fire reflected from the burning of the house, turning it into a little coal, and he'd like to pretend it's winking at him.

It's one of his greatest fantasies turned into a living nightmare, and he wouldn't wake up if he could (he can't).

Miwa tangles her chubby fingers in her mother's sleeve and giggles in awe as it rustles back and forth, the vibrations from Saki's thrust bouncing them around like puppets. She can't process what's happening, so she just coos and enjoys the ride. (In one of life's few mercies, Karai does not remember this).

When it's over, Saki collapses on top of Shen, sobbing, tears dripping from his one functioning eye. Semen leaks out of her body and and stains them both as he sinks his teeth into her unburned cheek, bites deep. "I love you," he whispers, rapidly chilling blood bitter on his tongue. "I will _always_ love you."

He means it.

Then he puts himself away and staggers to his feet, pulling Miwa close to his chest. He goes off to find more people to hurt, more havoc to wreak. He leaves the last of his tears on Shen's corpse.

When the authorities finally arrive, they make sure not to tell Hamato Yoshi about the precise state of his wife's body. The poor man's been through enough, after all.

Saki comforts Karai when she wakes up from nightmares about fire, telling her a story that he would like to believe is true. He tucks tiger lilies behind her ear and thinks of bright sparks, and quiet hopes, and three children relaxing in a field before the light in their lives grew fierce enough to burn.


	7. Bruises On The Skin And Heart (Indigo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brotherly love (its ups and downs)

"Hold still," Donnie murmurs, dabbing at the bruise on Raph's head. His brother squirms, but doesn't say anything--he can't. A mottled ring of bruises circles his throat like a fucked-up necklace, ugly flowers blooming on his skin. At the other side of the lab Leo wears an identical necklace, prints matching an identical set of fingers, peering out sullenly from under an icepack.

The lumps of their heads aren't from each other, though; they're from Mikey. Donnie hadn't been in the room when the latest Incident happened, had only felt relief at the sound of his two screaming brothers abruptly going quiet. When he'd heard the soft _rap_ of wood on skin, followed by two thumps, he'd been a little confused, but hadn't been paying enough attention to connect the dots.

Then Mikey had kicked the door to his lab open with an expression of undisguised terror on his face, and Donnie's ignorant bliss was abruptly yanked away. Their brothers lay limp on the dojo floor where Mikey had found them, hands still curled from when they were gripping each other's throats before they got whacked over the head with nunchucks.

 _Gripping each other's throats._ Donnie hadn't wanted to believed Mikey, but he couldn't ignore the very distant fingerprints, not to mention the murderous looks they shot each other when they finally woke up.

Speaking of Mikey, he'd disappeared, muttering something about going to hang out with Leatherhead and Mondo. Donnie would have liked to follow, but apparently someone had to stay home to play doctor and psychiatrist, even if that someone didn't have an actual degree in either and was dealing with two lunatics who'd give Hannibal Lecter a run for his money.

"You could have killed each other," he says out loud, almost conversationally, passing Raph an icepack. "Are you aware of that? You could have literally strangled each other to death on the dojo floor and we would have found your shit-stained corpses lying there an hour later, and we'd have to haul you both up to Northampton and try to find a way to squeeze you in with Splinter."

Leo makes a grab for a notepad, but Donnie plucks it out of reach and holds it behind his back. "No," he says, voice shaking ever so slightly. "You're not talking now. I'm talking." His brothers both cross their arms over their chests, wearing identical expressions of confused petulance, and he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the sight.

"Do you want to die? Is that what you want?" Raph and Leo shake their heads, looking insulted, and Donnie raises an eye ride. "Really? Because that's not what the data says.

"It's getting worse. The two of you, this little catfight you've had going since you could walk is getting worse, and it's not cute anymore, and it's not normal, and it's not _safe._ I'm going to have feed you two IVs until it's safe for you to swallow, you know. And if we had any that _didn't_ go into the wrist I'd use them just to prove a point." Raph tenses, but Donnie ignores him.

"Do you have any idea what it would do to use if you died? Mikey and I....you guys may be assholes, but you love us, and we love you--we _need_ you. We'd survive without you, maybe, but we'd have no chance in hell of being able to _live._ And Karai, Casey, April--it would destroy them. It really would. Especially if they knew you did it to each other." His words shake a little at that, at the very _idea._

Leo shakes his head, looking angry now, and makes another grab for the pen. Donnie holds it out of reach and Leo's face works in frustration, trying to plot out the pros and cons of starting a fight.

"I know why you're doing this," Donnie says, softer now. "I know that you're angry, and I know that you blame yourselves, and that you blame each other, but this _isn't what Splinter wanted_. Not if he was worth anything as a father, anyway.

"And, since you've screamed about it enough that I know it's on your minds, I _don't_ know why he hasn't come back to tell you to get your shit together himself. I don't know why he blatantly flavored you, Leo," Leo tenses at that, "Or why he never told you, Raph, that hitting people for almost no reason wasn't actually a good thing," Raph blinks, "until Leo started to believe it, too.

"I don't know why he made the mistakes he made and I-- _we'll--_ never know, but we know that he didn't want you to end up like Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi: the Sequel." Both of his brothers stiffen at that, and Donnie wonders if they ever though of it that way. "And that's what'll happen if you keep going down this road."

His breath hitches a little at the words, with fear and anger and grief. He's talking too fast, too loud, and he thinks there might burning in his eyes. He doesn't care.

"Splinter's gone, but we're here, and we don't blame you for what happened. We _never_ have. Were mistakes made? Yes. Has everyone in this flame committed at least one apocalypse-level fuckup? Yeah. News flash, that's how people _work_. And I can tell you, from my _perfect_ recall of the incident, that there's only one person responsible for what happened to Father and he's been dead for months."

Donnie steps forward until he's looming over both of them; he's gratified to see them shift back a little in their chairs. That means they're _listening,_ for once. "I'm not letting him take you with him," he says, letting his voice shake and watching their eyes widen at the sound.

"So get over this," he says, tight and tense. "Now. Shake hands, kiss, make up, I don't care. The next time you start fighting over random shit I want it to be actually _about_ the random shit and not about ghosts and things that are _over_. And if you don't I'll....I'll...."

A moment of panic, because what if there's really nothing he can do? What if they really did want to destroy each other, because they didn't love each other enough or they loved each other too much, wanted to take the other's pain away?

But no. _No._

"I'll drug you, I'll lock you up, I'll use _shock collars_ if that's what it takes," he growls, regaining himself. "We've been through too much together for you idiots to _really_ want yourselves dead. Deep down you love each other, you always have. Now you have to remember it before you do something you can't....can't....can't..."

It dawns on him that there are several reasons that they're looking at him with expressions of blank shock, and one of them is the tears trickling down his face. "Fuck," he whispers, scrubbing at his cheeks. "Fuck, I..."

There's staring at him. They're staring him and those stupid indigo necklaces are burning into his eyes and the tears are glittering painfully bright in the harsh laboratory glow and he _can't do this anymore._ "Just figure it out, okay?"

He turns and stalks out of the lab, making sure to take the pad with him--last thing he needs is to give these clowns a way to blame each other for what just happened. There's silence from the lab as he stalks into his room, collapses on his bed, and finds himself sobbing so hard it hurts.

Donnie's not sure how long he sits there, crying for himself, crying for his father, crying for Mikey, crying for his poor stupid, broken big brothers. He cries until his throat is raspy and his eyes are killing him, until he doesn't think he could talk anymore than they can.

When he's finally dry and empty, staring listlessly at the ceiling...that's when they come to join him. The door creaks open and then they're slipping into the bed besides him, silent as the ghosts they're trying to leave behind.

Raph and Leo lie down on either side of Donnie, folding their arms together behind his head heart shapes. Their bodies curl into a heart shape, soft green scales melting into one another.

There'd be nothing to say, even if any of them can talk. They just lie there, and breath, coexisting more peacefully than they have in a long time.

After a while Mikey comes to join them, easily melting into the tangle of bodies. He exhales, the sweet smell of candy and pizza filling his brother's nostrils, and hums a few notes of a lullaby Sensei used to sing.

"It's going to be okay," Mikey whispers to his big brothers, his voice sounding so loud after so much quiet. "It's going to be all right, I promise. I love you, and you love each other." He sounds so beautifully certain.

Donnie presses his face into the curve of somebody's shoulder (doesn't really matter whose) and tries his hardest to believe it. He suspects the others are doing the same.


	8. Stripes And Bones (Black)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love between the heartless.

It wasn't love.

They were friends, sure--they'd bounded partly over mutual respect and partly as a way to spite Xever--but it wasn't love. At its core it was a matter of convenience; Bradford was the only who could bear Tiger Claw's massive dick with ease, the only one who didn't mind the scrape of knife-sharp claws over his bony shoulders. Steranko might have been an option, later on, but he was a) an idiot and b) didn't want to fuck anyone except Bebop.

So it was just the two of them, Bradford straddling Takeshi to keep from slicing him with his blades too badly, even though Tiger Claw never really seemed to mind the cuts. "Freak," Bradford would mutter at the sight of him donning bandages without a word, ignoring the soft ripple of relief in his chest.

The first time it happened, they'd been getting drunk at Foot headquarters in the aftermath of the invasion. They'd told each other that there were doing it to celebrate and not to drown the very special sorrow of having one's ass kicked by an unarmed sixteen-year-old and learning that one's boss had helped trigger the potential end of life as they knew it (yes, they were still loyal, and yes, it was his daughter, bu _....an alien invasion)._

Someone had brought up the inevitable topic of loneliness, of how they wouldn't even be able to get hookers in the current environment, and, well...

They'd woken up the next morning curled up together in Tiger Claw's bed, hungover and sticky. Their memories were blurry, but didn't suggest any lack of pleasure or consent, so they decided to keep it up. After all, they needed something to feel the hours that wouldn't be taken up by training or fighting, didn't they?

They didn't acknowledge the cuddling, of course. Because it wasn't _really_ cuddling, because they weren't sappy morons like those bratty turtles, because theirs was a purely physical relationship. And for a while, it was.

It helped that they both had a habit of muttering other people's names when they fucked. Occasionally one of them would hiss the name of a certain turtle, and then they might pause to exchange a glare, silently daring the other to judge. The names "Leonardo" or "Michelangelo" were never discussed outside of mission briefings.

When someone breathed one of the Shredder's names, things got a bit more awkward, and it usually took a bit for them to reestablish eye contact. Nothing could kill the mood faster than saying one of _each other's_ names, though. Grunts and groans were tolerable enough, if still rather unmanly, but they refused to _moan_ for one another that way.

The first few times it happened, the night ended abruptly, and in ugly silence. After a while they started ignoring it just to spite one another (looking back this was a mistake, it starting making them complacent).

They started doing other things, too, as time passed, in between the fighting and killing and reassuringly simple obedience. They talked a little about their past lives--light things, mostly, reminiscing about old lovers and painful training and the places where they grew up. Whenever he felt the conversation going too long, Bradford would always make sure to cut it off, and Takeshi never argued.

When Tiger Claw started talking, careful and hesitant, about the events that had made him who he was today, about the parents he'd left behind and the sister he'd lost, Bradford would tell him to shut the fuck up about that sappy shit. Or he'd try to, but it'd be hard sometimes, harder than it should have been. Sometimes Tiger Claw would have to shut himself up instead, before he spilled more than was proper.

As time passed, they started mentioning the turtles less, and mentioning each other's names more. The conversations grew a little longer, the silences grew a little more awkward. And that's _it,_ really. They weren't men for sweeping romantic passions, so lucky for them it wasn't a passion.

One of the turtles kicked Rahzar off the roof, and Takeshi told himself that the spurt of panic was the side effect of his concussion. That bitch fox sliced off Takeshi's hand, and Bradford assured himself his teeth-gnashing fury was just for the sanctity of the Foot clan, and if he was angry on Tiger Claw's behalf it was only because they were _friends._

They were soldiers and butchers, torturers and protectors. They weren't _lovers._ Takeshi had suffered too much from love already, and Bradford had seen enough of it going bad to never try at all. Affection was a weakness, and they were proud not to feel it.

Bradford doesn't remember the point in their relationship when all that had become total bullshit, but he does remember when he first admitted to his true feelings to himself. It's about ten or twenty seconds after he saw the turtle in blue cut off Tiger Claw's head, splattering them all with gore.

All of a sudden there's blood in his mouth and he's filled with the kind of pain that isn't supposed to exist out of shitty romance novels, the kind of pain he used to hear Saki talk about without ever really understanding. He's standing there like an idiot, watching Takeshi--brave, arrogant, noble, stupid, _beautiful_ Takeshi--fall like a ton of bricks at the turtle's feet.

Somehow he caught feelings, and he's pretty sure the furry bastard did too, not that they ever discussed it with each other. And he's grateful for that, grateful that whatever fragile thing they had, that Bradford still feels, wasn't crushed with words.

Fragile, but still toxic. Why else would he snatched up Tiger Claw's sword and advancing on the turtles, knowing he's outnumbered and probably outmatched, knowing that there's no longer a Shredder to back him up?

"Stupid," he murmurs, feet squishing in Tiger Claw's blood. "Stupid stupid _stupid."_ He's not sure who he's talking to--Tiger Claw, Shredder, the turtles, his own idiotic heart.

They descend on him, and he feels a surge of relief that he won't have to deal with this pain for very long. It's followed by a surge of fear, a flicker of childish panic about where he would probably end up.

But if he does have to go to hell, at least Takeshi will be waiting for him there.


	9. Pretty Treasures And Prettier Lies (Gold)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Manipulative love.

The bathwater spills across the floor, threaded with streaks of blackish red. Karai sits naked in the middle of the tub, slowly picking the necklace her father got her for her birthday apart. Little silver links and gold beads drifting through the water like ridiculously expensive pebbles.

She picks a bead up and presses it between her wrinkled fingers, squeezing hard enough to hurt. For a moment she considers swallowing it just to see what would happen if she swallowed it, but she op to flick it back into the water instead.

Someone knocks on the door. "Karai?"

"Go away," she says, voice hoarse.

"Karai, open the door." She pictures him standing there in his nice day clothes, water pooling around his feet. She dearly hopes he's getting his socks wet, that he'll have to scrub the fruity scent of girl's shampoo out of his feet. ~~She wishes she could scrub him out of her own skin.~~

" _No."_ It's a childish answer, but isn't she a child? _That ache between your legs, that's not for children._ Karai shoves the voice away. "I _hate_ you," she spits out, voice shaking just a little. "I hate you so _much."_ She yanks on what's left of the necklace and it snaps, beads skittering around the room. One smacks against her cheek and she hisses at the pain, eyes watering.

"You don't mean that," he says, so _sure,_ and she growls because deep down she knows he's right. She twists the handle even harder, sending fresh waves of hot water hissing up around her soldiers and tumbling over the edge. Her plan is to flood the bathroom until she can swim high enough to touch the ceiling, until she has to press her face against the tiles to breathe.

_~~Will Daddy still love me if I'm dead and bloated?~~ _

"Do you want me to break the door down?" he asks. He could do it, she knows he could. She's seen him punch bags clear off the hook before; she'd watch with her mouth open, awed by her papa's skill and strength.

"Sure, you knock yourself out," she says, filling her voice with that carefully practiced sneer she knows he can see right through. She's always been an open book to him. "You do what you want, right?"

Of course he does, he always does. The bruises on her throat and wrists, her thighs and breasts, are evidence of that. They shift through a slow, ugly swirl of colors; she's a human garden, covered in flowers without any thorns.

"Karai, I..." There's a pause and she blinks, trying to remember the last time her father hesitated like that. "I made a mistake." She almost hits her head on the fixture at _that._ "I should not have lashed out the way I did."

She tries her best to recover from the surprise, to remind herself that he's probably just trying to unbalance her. "You think?" she asks, still dripping with contempt she doesn't quite feel. She suddenly wonders what he looks like, if he's hanging his head in sorrow.

"I just, I got _angry,"_ he says. "It has always been difficult for me to keep control, and ever since I lost your mother..."

Her mother. It always comes back to her mother. "Tang Shen didn't hit me," she murmurs, swirling her fingers through the water, bumping them up against the glittering beads. They flash in her eyes, the light far too bright and sharp. She doesn't look away.

"I know," he says, voice growing soft. "But she was also a person who understood the need to forgive, to take new chances and move past mistakes. It was one of my favorite things about her."

She swirls the beads in the water, round on round. The hot water stings on her tender skin.

"It hurts," she whispers, hating how small her voice is. She tries to focus on the pain between her legs, but the blood has pretty much clotted up by now and her upper body suddenly feels so cold in that tub, no matter how much she pumps the hot water.

"I am sorry for that. You handle pain so well, I didn't think it would...." His voice trails off, and she wants to lash out at the obvious bait, only--well, he's right, isn't he? Warriors don't let themselves feel pain, warriors take changing situations in stride, warriors understand the anger of others because they have so much in their own bodies. And she is ~~just~~ a warrior.

"I'm bleeding," she says lamely, trying to rally.

"All right, then. Would you like me to clean you up?"

She doesn't, not really. But she can't stay in this tub, and deep down she understands that there's nowhere else she can go. Besides, she wants to prove herself to him, and believe that he's someone worth proving herself to.

He's her father, after all. It's not like he's ever _wrong_ about anything, not really.

"I've got lock picks on the dresser," she says, a tacit acceptance. She strains her ears to hear soft clicking at the door and then it's swinging open as he enters. He's barefoot, pant legs rolled up, and she's gratified to see the edges of them are dripping just a little.

"Ah, Karai." He kneels by her side, not seeming to mind the water, and turns off the faucets. His hand rests on her shoulder, warm and reassuring and only making her skin crawl a little. "My love."

She lets him run a comb through her hair and dab at her bruises with some wet wipes plucked from his pocket, humming a few notes from a lullaby her nursemaid used to sing. When his hand dips between her legs her breath catches, but he just cleans up what's left of the blood without trying anything, and she tries to bite back her little gasps of pain.

Then's her father's picking her up and drying her off, wringing out her hair so that warm water trickles down her back and sends the last of the beds skittering away. He carries her back into her bedroom and sets her on the bed, slipping off his wet pants before crawling into the bed with her.

When his hand dips back between her legs, slick with something that isn't water, she stiffens. "I don't..."

"Hush, sweetheart, it's just ointment."

"All...all right." She snuggles closer to him, burying her face in his arm and breathing in his scent, trying to relax.

Whatever he's doing soothes her inflamed flesh...until his pace picks up, and little swirls of pleasure start up in her belly. "I wanted to give you a reward," he murmurs, stroking her hair with his free hand. "I understand this all has been difficult for you, but you're doing so well." She forces herself to melt into the sensations, to enjoy the pleasure and the rare praise.

Afterwards he tugs her up against his chest, the hairs there ticking her skin as he rubs her neck gently. "I love you, Karai."

"I love you too, Daddy."  
  


A few months later he breaks her arm. He gets her a new gold necklace to make up from it, one set with rubies that glitter on her skin like drops of blood. He says it goes well with her hair.

A few years after that, he's dead and no one says anything if she occasionally floods the bathroom. Karai takes every pretty, shiny thing he ever gave her and melts them down into knives, razor-edged pieces of light to keep her safe from the monsters.


	10. Snow And Fur (White)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love to pull you from the edge.

"Where are you, Alopex?"

She's standing in the woods, the fire warm on her fur and the smell of burned things heavy on her nose. "At the end," she murmurs, hugging herself.

"That doesn't sound good." A fox dashes out of the fire and she makes a grab for it, but it slips out of her reach before she can touch it. There are markings on its faces....her markings? Are her markings purple or blue? She can't remember.

"Can you come back to me, Al?" There's a brush of wind across her face, the scent of metal and cinnamon in the air. She blinks and it's gone.

"I don't know the path." That doesn't make sense; she's a daughter of the forest; she should be able to find her way blindfolded. But the smoke is crawling up her nose, burning her throat, and trying to sniff only makes the pain worse.

"Okay. Do you remember how you got here, then?"

The fire laps at the earth, drawing closer and closer. The snow shines like hospital corridors and white lab coats, biting her eyes. She tries to run but her feet are stuck, useless little claws _scritch-scratching_ against the ground. She snarls, but her teeth tangle in her lips and all that comes out is a soft whimper, blood dripping into the snow with a hiss.

"I don't..." She's scared, she's too cold and too hot and her mouth hurts, the world is on fire and everything is wrong wrong wrong. " _I don't know._ The snow's burning and my fur hurts like the whitecoats did something again and I'm scared and alone and it _hurts."_

She's panicking--she shouldn't, she's a kuniochi, she's better than this, but she's _scared._ So scared, like nothing's changed from when she was a little kit trapped in the labs. She hates it, but that doesn't make it stop.

"It's all right, _querida,_ it's okay. I'm here, it's not real. I'm here. Just turn to look at me "

"But I don't see you!" There's a flicker in the smoke, the shape of a woman, and the sight makes her fur crawl. "I see _her,_ I _see_ her, I...."

"She's gone, remember? She can't hurt you anymore. We came for you, and you got her out of your head. You showed that crazy bitch who's boss."

 _"Liar,"_ she spits, angry as well as frightened, twisting away from the voice. "You're just one of her tricks, you lying liar I don't know you I don't remember you she took _everything_ there aren't any _words_ I don't I can't--"

"Yes you do." It that the brush of a hand on her cheek? She can't tell.

"My name's Angel," the voice says, sounding so sure of itself. "You kick ass with me every night. Last Saturday we went to have lunch in my blind abuela's kitchen and we kept needing to find ways to keep her from pinching your cheek. You don't eat rabbits anymore, but you still like to chase them and let you go. You got high by accidence once and I have blackmail video of you chasing your tail."

The words sound familiar and Alopex tries to concentrates on them, she _tries,_ but the woman's getting closer now with every word. Her face is a soft mask of smoke, but her hair is drawn up in a style Alopex knows very well. The flames flicker around her feet like skirts as the fire draws closer, closer, scraping at Alopex's nostrils like steel claws and needles.

"It won't _stop,"_ she hisses, rocking back and forth, desperately trying to pull herself free. "Make it stop, make it stop, please..." The fire's scorching her fur and she can hear her family shrieking in the distance. She yanks on her foot with a growl, the snow crumbling into her fur.

"Alopex!" The voice is a bark, more commanding--more _frightened--_ than Alopex has ever heard it. "I need you to _stay still_."

"I can't just leave them!" she cries. "I left before and they _died,_ I won't--"

"You have to," Angel says. "I'm so sorry, _mi amor_ , but they're gone. And I can't reach you where you are, so you need to _wake up_ and come back to me."

"Wake up?" Kitsune's voice, so light and amused, sends needles of ice down Alopex's spine. The very snow seems to shiver as she draws near, the smoke melting away to reveal a perfect face sparkling with amusement. "There's nothing to wake up _to,_ little fox. This is your world, now. This is who you are--a creature made of ash and ice and _ruin._ "

"No," she whispers, shaking her head. "No, no no _no!"_

"Do you want to run?" Kitsune asks, inspecting her nails. "You might get twenty, thirty feet. It'd be interesting to find out." She cocks her head, looking Alopex up and down with that insufferable smirk. "Or would you prefer to _fight?"_ Alopex lets out a soft hisses as the last of the snow crumbles away and she tenses, preparing to jump.....

 _"NO!"_ The cry almost sends Alopex toppling over. "Al, Al, _you can't jump."_

"Hmmm," Kitsune says, drawing closer, closer. "That's convenient _,_ isn't it?" The snow's melting to water now, soaking Alopex's feet while her fur begins to crisp.

"You have to trust me," Angel says, words taut with desperation. But kuniochi aren't supposed to trust _anyone,_ are they? No one except their masters and she doesn't have a master anymore and she can't see Angel, although she can see Kitsune all too clearly....

"It's not real," Angel repeats. "Alopex, _mi amor_ , it is Not. Real. I love you and I trust you, and I need you to trust me. _Please."_

Angel never begs for anyone, never bends. But here, right now, she is begging Alopex, and her voice sounds so much louder than the crackling of the fire, so much stronger than the screams.

Alopex's breath hitches and her world spins and she's still standing there, still--stupidly, sentimentally--trusting.

"Silly girl," Kitsune says, reaching out. Her hand brushes along Alopex's cheek and it _burns,_ she's screaming, she's

Her arms are windmilling as she sways, gasping for breath in the chilly city air. She's standing on a steel beam not quite the width of her carefully curled feet, the concrete rippling far below. 

"Oh." Alopex turns to see Angel standing at the far end in the beam in her pajamas, hair slicked to her face with tears. "Oh, thank God."

The walls on either side of the beam are far away--too far away to grab onto if she fell. Her stomach twists with nausea in a way it hasn't since she first started navigated the roofs.

"It's okay, baby," Angel whispers, looking like she might collapse with relief. "You're _safe."_

There's a squeal of a van far below and suddenly the turtles are scampering into the alley, clutching a rug that they must have been planning to use as a makeshift net--Angel had called in reinforcements at some point. Alopex drops into a crouch and peers down at them, giving a shaky thumbs up.

Then her belly's burning and vomit is plunging into the alley like the world's most fucked-up waterfall, splattering across some poor soul's Honda Civic.

"I woke up and the bed was empty," Angel murmurs, stroking Alopex's fur as she lies with her head in her lap. "I thought you'd gone for a run, I looked out the window and..." She sucks in a breath. "Your eyes were open. I called you and you didn't respond. You looked...empty." She shakes her head. "That's when I called the guys."

The guys in question are crowded into the apartment; Leo's making tea, Raph and Mikey are searching the closet for tools to cleanse the befouled Civic, and Donnie is sitting across from them in the creaky little chair, looking tired and uncomfortable.

"Sleepwalking," he says. "Could be trauma or stress, could be a side effect of being under Kitsune's influence so long..."

"What if she's trying to get back in my head?" Alopex asks, fists clenching in the couch fabric. She can't go through that again, she _won't._

"Then you'll kick her ass again," Angel says, still stroking her hair. "And we'll help you do it." She bends down, placing a soft kiss on Alopex's cheek. " _I_ _'ll_ help you do it." Her fingers wrap around Alopex's and squeeze, warm and strong.

Alopex squeezes back, taking a deep, slow breath, and there is no more smoke in her nose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Querida - Spanish for "darling."
> 
> mi amor - my love


	11. Wires And Cooking Pots (Copper)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kind of love that comes from bonding over a good meal....

The creak of the wires has becomes as familiar to him as the coppery scent of blood and burnt flesh. The sound echoes back and forth in time with his heartbeat; low, rhythmic, the closet thing he has to a clock.

In the first days his feet brushed the floor, but now they can no longer brush anything, and he has no arms left to bear his weight. The wires wrapped around his torso have worn so far into his skin that he no longer feels the pain, only the occasional soft trickle of a droplet or two down his wrists.

He hears his captors discussing it in whispers outside his door. "What if he bleeds out? We could wake up and find he's been dead half to night and then the meat'll go to shit."

"He's fine," someone will always say, voice filled with confidence. "He can take it.

"He's _Splinter,_ after all."

Funny how his sons continue to hold him on a pedestal in some regards, when he has been so thoroughly cast down in others. Funny, too, how a part of him continues to think of them as _sons_ , rather than as _creatures_ , the way he did when they were small. It's like he took so long ingraining the habit that it's become almost impossible to stop now, even after they so abruptly turned on him.

Perhaps they were signs, he thinks. Perhaps it was in those sharp distant faces of theirs, their whispered conversations in inhuman tongues, the way they _looked_ at him during or after he disciplined them, like they were seeing right through him. Perhaps their cold blood wasn't simply biological, but meant something deeper, something uglier about their natures.

It's hard to tell. Rare is the parent who is able to predict what their offspring will become.

 _Fathers are supposed to provide for their children,_ Leonardo had said the first day, after Yoshi woke to find himself strung up like a puppet, mouth stinging from whatever they'd managed to slip into his tea. _Aren't you grateful for the opportunity, Sensei?_

There'd been a strange glint in his eye, in all their eyes, the kind he'd glimpsed before. He'd been gratified by the sight of it once, been sure that it would make them good, ruthless soldiers.

But they hadn't cared about the human world. They'd rolled their eyes at his talk of vendettas and great wars, no matter how many times he punished them for it...all except Leonardo, who had stared at him with those hungry, hungry eyes.

It was only later that Splinter would wonder what, exactly, his eldest child had been so hungry for. His father's power, perhaps? His control? Or, maybe, even then, his flesh?

Leonardo will still visit him at times, to show off a kata he'd finally mastered or a new move he'd learned from one of Yoshi's old books. "How'd I do, Sensei?" he'll ask, and sometimes he seems genuinely distressed that Yoshi doesn't answer.

Of course, Yoshi _can't_ answer. They'd taken his tongue on the first day, after that odd little trial of theirs. They'd lined up a whole rosters of accusations--his punishments were too harsh and too frequent, over such minor things. He'd beaten or burned or locked them up far too many times for their liking, until it dawned on them they didn't really _need_ a teacher anymore.

 _I was trying to make you stronger,_ he'd said, and they'd just stared. Raphael had _laughed. Stronger for what?_ he'd said. _To fight your shitty wars? What makes you think we would ever give a fuck about your dumb wife or dead daughter?_

Yoshi had raged at him for that, had made a desperate attempt at a lunge, and Raphael had hit him, still laughing. The others had urged him out of the room, ordering him not to damage the meat.

At least that's what Yoshi thought they were saying--they kept tossing in those peculiar hisses and clicks and chirps of theirs, the ones he had ordered them not to use. Most of the conversations he's head after his imprisonment were speckled with those sounds.

Raphael has visited a few times since then, to throw punches on the sly, but he spent most of his time out of sight. Sometimes Splinter could hear his fairly impressive belches from the dining room, and the sound always makes him nauseous.

The pain isn't as bad as it could be; he's pretty sure that Donatello is shooting him up with something that keeps him a bit more docile, made it a bit hard to control his swollen limbs back when he had them. Usually it's a low, constant burn at the edge of his mind, only to occasionally flare up into screeching pain at random moments.

If he's fortunate, it'll be enough to knock him out, gift him with several precious hours of unconsciousness. If he's not, he'll _feel_ the missing limbs dragging at his flesh like hungry ghosts; Donatello babbles about phantom limb syndrome without actually do anything, preferring to watch Yoshi's stumps twitch with mild awe.

He gives a half-hearted wiggle at the memory, feeling his withered stomach muscles flex. It has been so very longer since he was permitted the slightest exercise; he wonders if that's why they took his limbs first, so they could could enjoy the muscle before it withered, along with the more obvious goal of keeping him from running away.

Whatever their plan, it's certainly working. His sons look a lot happier and healthier than they did before all this started, when they were in the middle their worst winter yet. The algae was freezing, the stray dogs were rotting, and most of the trash was too frozen to eat.

During the trial they'd accused him of stealing food on the sly, which was why he'd remained strong, energetic, and sleek while they'd grown thin and weary. _We followed you!_ they said. _We saw you!_

He hadn't believed them, and even if they had--what did it matter? He'd sacrificed enough for them in the past. Couldn't they make sacrifices, too?

 _Children aren't supposed to make sacrifices for their parents,_ Donatello had said, his eyes twinkling in the way they did when he disassembled the microwave or a mouse, the way they kept twinkling no matter how Splinter tried to discipline him for it. _I read about it in a book._

 _Besides, we were hungry!_ _And you tasted so good!_ Michelangelo had whined.

He hadn't understood it. Not until he looked down, following their eyes, and saw the neat little stump that had used to be the lower half of his right leg. He'd screamed then, screamed and thrashed, until; Leo had rolled his eyes and knocked his father out with a nerve pinch.

He'd woken to find his tongue missing, too. He'd still been able to make a kind of gargling scream, however, so they'd had to stuff a piece of his robe into his mouth and left it there until he howled himself hoarse.

Now he has no legs at all, no arms, and a throbbing place on his torso where he thinks they might have removed a kidney. He's always unconscious whenever they come to take another part away, and if he's not sure if it's out of convenience or their last few fragments of mercy.

Donatello is usually the one who does the injections and no doubt the surgery, slicing his father up the way Splinter tried to teach his children to butcher wild dogs (the irony of this does not escape him). He doesn't talk to Splinter anymore, although he does mutter to himself in the style of a man who doesn't think he's being listened to by anyone of importance.

Michelangelo is the one who hums as he hoses his father's shit-streaked body down, not noticing worn not caring about Yoshi's shame. He's the one who crams foul-tasting slop down his father's throat, too, the stuff his children used to live on while waiting for him to get home from his scavenging runs.

Michelangelo's the one who presses on Splinter's throat to stop his gag reflex, murmuring soft little nothings into his father's ear. He chatters about his day, about the TV shows they've been watching, the new cooking styles he's discovered online, about the positions they're trying out

(Yes, because his fourteen-year-old sons have somehow started having _sex_ with each other, a fact Splinter only discovered when he heard the noises they made from his bedroom-turned-prison. It might say something about how low he's sunk, how his mind has cracked and shifted under the pressure, that he really doesn't care anymore).

Michelangelo frightens him the most, because Michelangelo acts like a _person_ around him. Raphael is blank rage, Leonardo is glittering hunger, Donnie is the cold gaze of a deity observing a bug, but Michelangelo laughs and chatters and hums, his eyes deeper and warmer than any of his brothers.

None of his sons are as human as he once thought they were, but for some reason it amuses Michelangelo to act the part. Or maybe he's not acting, maybe a part of him actually _feels_ something for Splinter, just not enough to actually want to help him.

Splinter doesn't know, and he certainly can't ask. All he can do is hang in his prison and give the occasional feeble jerk on the wires, even though Donatello tightens them on the regular. None of his former students have bothered to tell him how much time has passed, whether the winter is over, whether the algae and stray dogs have come back, whether they're doing so out of some form of need or simply because they like the taste.

He doesn't know if they'll do this again to someone else.

When he strains his ears he can hear them in the main room, laughing and chatting over their meal. He hears the slap of skin on skin, a coy giggle, a lusty growl. He hears someone chirp-murmur a joke that sends the whole table into uproarious laughter. He hears them talking eagerly, comfortably, _happily._

They sound like a family, the kind of family he lost once and thought he'd never have again. The family he might have had, if he could only reach out and take it--or maybe they would have been beasts anyway, but he'll never _know,_ will he?

They sound _normal,_ and the irony makes his stomach curl even as tears prick in his eyes.

All he can do is listen to them these days, it seems. He can never quite get focused enough for meditation, let along put together a viable escape plan, and besides where would he go. He literally has no leg to stand on (the idea makes a giggle of hysterical laughter bubble up in his throat, because he's scared that if he starts to laugh he'll end up crying until his throat bleeds).

"I love you guys," one of them says--he's not sure who, their faces and voices have started to blur together when they're not directly in front of him--and the others echo him. _I love you._ Did they ever say it to him? Did he ever say it to them?

He can't remember. There's a lot of things he can't remember, in this haze of drugs and pain and numbing horror. He thinks it might be better that way.

If he asked for a chance to do better next time, to be kinder and more forgiving, to raise them as children instead of weapons, would they believe him? Would he believe himself? He doesn't know, and it's hard to really think about such things knowing he'll never actually have a chance.

He hears the clink of spoons and bowls, and knows exactly what they're eating. Yoshi listens to his little monsters laugh over their food and pretends he's there, laughing with them.

Yoshi wonders what they'll take next when the refrigerator is empty. Perhaps, if he's lucky, it'll be something vital.

(He doesn't feel very lucky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Told from the meal's perspective.


	12. Broken Crystals And Empty Eyes (Blue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To destroy what you love.

Everything's wet. He's on his knees and his head hurts and he feels soaked to the skin, the water rushing down his throat to drown him on dry land. Turtles aren't supposed to shiver and shake the way he is, are they? He doesn't remember. He...he's supposed to remember. He's the guy who remember these things.

The world is silver, except where he's black. He's kneeling in a big black pool of something, only...it's not black, is it? The light's not too good, but he's pretty sure that it's a deep....dark...red.

He reaches out and his fingers wrap around something smooth and cold, which seems to shiver at his touch. He tugs on it and realizes it's attached to something else, something pale and limp and still. It's slick with the black-red stuff, it's shivering in the rain, it has

Empty

Blue

Eyes

That he used to say were colored like cornflowers or the flames in a Bunsen bunker or a hopeful blue sky, but now they're pale and cold like a drowning victim's lips and and and

The crystal shatters, sharp edges digging into his skin.

Someone's screaming. He realizes that it's him.

_April April April April_

"Donnie!"

They're pinning him now, screaming in his face, trying to keep him from driving the remains of the crystal through his eye. He wants to ask them why they're bothering, but all he can say is her name.

April April April, the blood is swallowing her hair or is her hair spreading to cover the blood? She looked so _pretty_ with it down, he wonders why she didn't wear it that way more often even though he knows it wouldn't be practical.

She looked so beautiful when she flew.

He falls, hits concrete, and then he sees Casey. Casey is lying on the ground staring at him, only Casey's head is facing the the wrong direction. He peers at Donnie over the curve of Raph's arm, and Raph is making a sound that is not remotely human.

When Casey's neck broke it sounded like a gun going off. All April had done was glance at him, silent judgment in those glorious terrible white eyes, and he'd _broken._

In the distance, he can hear sirens. The people are coming to laugh and point at the little freaks who tore each other apart, not that Donnie really gives a fuck anymore.

"Donnie...." He's being held now, rocked back and forth, someone sobbing in his ear. "Donnie, Donnie, please...." Mikey. It's Mikey.

He remembers screaming, begging her to stop. He remembers his little brother being hoisted into the air, out off their reach, crying out and thrashing in a desperate attempt to get free. He remembers looking at April's eyes and seeing absolutely nothing looking back, not even when he screamed her name, not even when he begged and cried, talked about all they'd shared.

Whatever it was, it wasn't April anymore. And yet it was, it _was_ , and and and

"It's okay, Donnie." At least, he thinks that's what they're saying. It's hard to tell over all that screaming. _Darwin_ , his throat is going hoarse. Can you scream yourself to death?

Leo's fingers jab into his neck and all the world flickers out, he sees April one last time through tear-blurred eyes, and she's as beautiful as ever.

The naginata sprouting from her back seems to warp and blur until it becomes a set of wings. The most important gift he'd ever given her, and the cruelest.

She hadn't sensed it coming. How could she? All he'd been feeling when he flung the staff was _love,_ a desperate hopeless love that drowned out everything except for the need to make. It. Stop _._

Had he been trying to save her, too? He didn't know if he could really say that, if it wouldn't too hubristic to think she might not save herself. But she wouldn't save herself in time to save Mikey _,_ and she'd never come back from what she'd done to Casey. But....but....he doesn't know. He doesn't know anything anymore.

He doesn't know if he could have fixed April or not, and now he'll never get a chance to figure it out. He's the guy who knows, that _literally all he is,_ and when the lives of two of the people he loved most were on the line he realized he didn't know jack shit.

There'd been no time to figure out, not with Casey dead on the ground, not with the air crackling like that, not with Mikey dangling in the air like a worm on the hook. So he'd made a choice, like every cop or soldier who'd gunned down a child on the street.

And now April O'Neil is in the morgue with a hole in her torso, while her father no doubt tells anyone who'll listen about the heavily armed mutants she'd made the mistake of befriending. It hurts. _It hurts it hurts it hurts_ and he relishes the pain, because what else does he deserve for killing the woman he loves?

Maybe she let it happen. He can't think about that, so it digs and wears away at the back of his mind until he wants to drag his brain out of his skull.

He wakes up and for a few precious seconds he doesn't remember what happened to leave his hands clenched in painful fists. When he does, he starts screaming again, screaming and hitting himself until his brothers come rushing to hold him, to keep him safe until he wears himself out.

Raph reeks of alcohol, and Donnie takes deep breaths of the terrible smell, to remind himself that his brother is still breathing, that _all_ his brothers are still breathing (and all it took was everything). He feels a surge of relief that it was Raph instead of Casey, and then hates himself because Casey Jones may have been annoying, but he _did not_ deserve this.

"I'm sorry," Mikey wails. "I'm so, so, _sorry_ ," and he wants to say _how dare you have the gall to suffer after what I did for you,_ but he doesn't. He'd probably feel the same in Mikey's place, so instead he squeezes his brother back.

They cling to each other as tightly as they can, because they can't bear to lose each other, too.

"We...we had to leave them," Leo says, not looking at him as he sips tea. "I'm sorry, Don. The cops were almost there."

"It's fine," Donnie murmurs, peering into his coffee. What was once the nectar of the gods to him now resembles muddy sludge.

"Karai found a hacker to wipe the footage," Leo tells him. _Because you were busy losing your shit_ _,_ he doesn't need to add.

"They'll go on a hunt anyway, even if they don't know exactly what they're looking for," Donnie murmurs. " _Young, pretty white couple murdered by mysterious marauders. Is it connected to the mutant epidemic infecting our streets?"_ He gives a bitter laugh. "The press'll have a fucking _field_ day."

"Donnie..." His brothers reaches out to take his hand, but Donnie doesn't--can't--reach back. "It wasn't your fault."

"Really? So it wasn't my naginata that...that..." He sucks in a breath, hands tightening on the table. He can't say it. If he says it he might start screaming again, or he might stop speaking forever.

"You saved Mikey's life," Leo says. "You saved us--"

"Saved us from _what,_ exactly?" Donnie spits out. Leo stiffens at the tone, but Donnie doesn't care, because right now raging feels better than weeping.

"From our best friend, our _clanswoman,_ the girl who's fought besides us for years? Saved a girl who was struggling with something awful that we couldn't see because we couldn't get our heads out of our asses, a girl we treated like a _monster_ the way people always treat _us?_ Saved us from the _woman I fucking loved?"_

He blinks, swaying--he's on his feet all of a sudden, and he's pretty sure from his hoarse voice that he's been shouting. Everyone's staying, except for Splinter, who hasn't looked directly at Donnie since It happened.

"She killed Casey," Raph murmurs, staring at his feet.

 _"She didn't mean to!"_ Donnie shouts, whirling on him. "She didn't--she wouldn't--she'd _never--"_

"She did," Raph says. "Or that _thing_ did, whatever the fuck it was. And it was gonna kill Mikey, too, and us, and then everyone else on its little hit list. And if April managed to come back after all that, she probably would've done it to herself instead."

"You don't know that," Donnie whispers, hugging himself. "I hear you guys crying for her, you know? Crying for _her_ , not just Casey. And how are you supposed to forgive me--how do _I_ forgive me--when we're all mourning and it's never gonna stop?"

He's crying, and his brothers are reaching for him, so Donnie staggers away. He doesn't want to be touched, doesn't want to taint them or be tainted by their forgiveness. He wants to _hurt._

So he staggers away, back into the quiet safety of his room, and flops down on the bed for a nice hateful cry. He doesn't get up for a long time.

He hates himself for choosing April, and he hates the part of himself that wishes he sacrificed Mikey.

~~If he ever hears the phrase "bros before hoes" again, he might seriously rip someone's throat out with his teeth.~~

In his dreams April visits him, says she forgives him, and Donnie doesn't know whether to cry or laugh. If her ghost is really there it means she's crazy, and if it's not it means _he's_ crazy, and what does it really matter when he can't even forgive himself?

"I miss you," is all he can say. "I miss you _so much,_ I _can't breathe,_ I... _I'm so sorry."_

She kisses him on the forehead, her lips so gentle, and an ugly little part of him is disappointed it's not one on the mouth. "It's okay, Don," she says, lying. "What happened sucks, but it's going to be okay."

Donnie prefers the dreams where she tells him to go to hell, that he's a monster and murderer. Those seem to make a lot more sense.

"You can learn to live with the guilt," Karai promises, stroking his head.

"Most of the bad things you did were because Shredder forced you," Donnie reminds her. "No one made me do _anything."_

"You didn't have a choice," she says, as if she was _there,_ as if she knew anything about the multitude of paths he _knows_ he could have taken to save April. if only he'd had time to fucking _think._

 _Would you have done it?_ he wants to ask Leo. _If it was Karai, and one of us was going to die, would have you have done it?_ He's too scared to ask, though. He doesn't want to be told he's the odd one out, and he doesn't want to realize he comes from a family of monsters.

He keeps the lights in his room turned high, because the shadows are full of blue eyes. He looks at Leo's blue mask and thinks of her, he looks at Raph's red one and thinks of her, he looks at Mikey and can't help noticing how much he resembled April, with his freckles and bright blue eyes.

This kind of thinking is crazy, is ridiculous, is overdramatic and illogical, and his heart still twinges whenever he looks at his brothers all the same. "I'm not mad at you," he says, trying to reassure them again and again, even though he's not entirely sure about himself.

Mikey shows up to breakfast one day with circles under his eyes and marker all over his freckles, and Leo scolds him while Donnie tries and fails to meet his eyes. "It wasn't your fault," he whispers while Leo goes to get soap and Raph stares sullenly into his coffee, knowing all too well that Mikey won't believe him.

The bathroom mirror reminds him of a crystal, so he shatters it, adding new scars to the ones on his hands. The neck morning the remaining shards have been taken away, and all that's left is a deep black hole that Mikey keeps taking things over. It's such a perfect, contrived metaphor for how Donnie feels right now he snicker/sobs every time he washes his hands.

He cuts himself a few times, with some of his spare shuriken. It makes him feel better, so he stops.

No one offers him his staff back, not that he would take it if he did. Someone knocks on his door at one point, muttering something about training, and Donnie doesn't bother to sit up. He doesn't bother to visit the lab either; the lab, the last place where he talked to April when she was _April,_ the place haunted by the ghosts of his mistakes.

When training and the lab are taken away he finds he doesn't really have interest in a lot of other stuff. If he doesn't move as much, he finds he doesn't have to think as much, and he likes not thinking, so he doesn't move. Instead he just sits and listens to his family, eat, train, argue. He hears Raph and Leo talk fight about how much Raph's been drinking, hears the long gaps of silence from Master Splinter, the quiet blame on all their shoulders.

Occasionally one of his brothers will try to get him to take a shower or eat a meal, and he'll let them do it, because if he try to fight back he'll just end up crying again. They'll drag him out of his room to play video games or watch a movie. He'll stare at the screen, occasionally make a few moves to keep them happy; they should be happy, they're not _killers._

At some point Leo and Raph to drag him to the dojo, saying "you can just use your fists" and Donnie just sits in the corner and doesn't respond when Master Splinter tells him to join the others in sparring or their katas.

He doesn't know why they're still bothering to train at all, and he says so. "Why are we even going back up there?" he asks. "Topside is a failed experiment, isn't it?" His brothers just stare at him, and Donnie wants to peel his skin off to escape the pity in their eyes.

"Sorry," he mutters, getting to his feet and racing out of the room. He crawls back under the covers and curls up in a ball, hugging himself and pretending that the ghosts are holding him.

He hears them whispering outside the door, his voices low and anxious. He falls asleep and when he wakes up the sharp objects have all disappeared from his room while the bathroom is completely empty of pills, even Advil. He has to ask Leo before he gets one and his brother always mutters about putting them back once he gets around to it.

Donnie doesn't begrudge them their efforts, or remind them that he could really kill himself if he tried, but he doesn't want to risk running into April in the afterlife and hurting her even more. He doubts they would believe him and besides, it might be good for them to feel like they have some control over this clusterfuck that is their lives.

Or at least that's what they think, until one of his brothers takes a very different step towards regaining control.

Something drops on his bed with a _thump._

"Donnie. Donnie."

"Whuzzah?" He's _really_ not in the mood for one of Mikey's attempts at cheering him up. But when his eyes crack open, Mikey's face is slick with tears. _Did I yell at him already?_ Then Donnie sees what his little brother has brought him, and he almost topples off the bed.

The Time Scepter glows softly, shimmering and flickering, as if it's anxious being away from its Mistress' side. Donnie reaches out to touch the cool surface and feels the nearly forgotten thrill of touching _new tech_ again run through his belly.

"What," he says, his voice a rough whisper from so much silence. And again: "What?"

"There's no time," Mikey whispers. "I don't know how long it'll be until Renet wakes up, just...just _go,_ okay? Please. You can stop this from ever happening, you can stop me from to--to betray her like that, you can save _everyone."_

But Donnie's already grabbing the scepter and pulling it close, running through his memories of how Renet operated it. "Thank you," he whispers. "Mikey, thank you so--"

"Thank _you,"_ Mikey insists, pulling him close. "It's going to be all right, big brother. You're going to fix everything, just like you always do. Now hurry."

He yelps Donnie stand on shaky legs and plants a soft kiss on his cheek. "See you in a few, Don."

The gift doesn't fix of him, of course. Donnie knows this. The guilt and horror of what he's done, what he's capable of, will always haunt him--after all a crime can only be done so much. The sorrow will chase him, too, and he knows there will be days when it drags him back down again, how can it not?

But April will be safe, Casey will be safe, his brothers and whatever alternate self he leaves behind will be _happy._ if the Time Mistresses come for him, he'll be happier in their chains than he ever was free. And that's worth it, that's worth everything.

He'd let himself be torn to _atoms_ to see her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope I didn't screw this up, that I didn't trivialize Donnie's pain, or April's, or anyone else's. I wasn't sure I wanted to post this story in its entirety, but I also wanted a hopeful ending.


	13. Tubes And Butterflies (Purple)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vengeful love.

They blast some of Mikey's music so the others won't overhear: Zayde Wolf, Saint Motel, Krewella, Missio. Loud stuff, the kind that can easily drown out carefully muffled screaming.

Most of Rahzar's limbs were carefully dislocated while he was unconscious, so there's no chance of him thrashing out of the chair. It's a big chair, carefully padded and covered in straps; Donnie thinks it was in an old mental hospital before it wound up in the dump.

The rest of the apparatus is mostly homemade, with tubing in Donnie's characteristic violet and a mask that Mikey idly scribbled some purple butterflies on while Donnie set up. If Mikey squints, the butterflies seem to be flexing their wings with every short, desperate jerk of Rahzar's head, the swirls of gas stirred up by their wings.

"What do you think he's seeing?" Mikey asks off-handedly, feeling a lot like he's watching this on a TV screen. He can picture the chemicals from the medication Donnie gave him swimming placidly in his bloodstream, flapping and wriggling like little fish.

"It's difficult to judge," Donnie says, studying Rahzar with that cold, quiet Scientist Gaze of his. "The possibilities are endless....childhood monsters, enemies back for revenge, his parents....."

"Me?" Mikey asks, squirming a little as his bandages crinkle between her legs. Donnie gives him a Look and he rolls his eyes, but keeps still. Even Leo's healing hands could only do so much after

_falling screaming breaking pinned in an alley mouth full of gravel something hard and hungry splitting him apart growls in his ear voice panting terrible words the kind of night to fill the foundations of your mind palace with rot and never go away_

that.

"Maybe," Donnie says, shrugging. "Is that what you want?"

"I don't know." Mikey leans back and stares at the mask through narrowed eyes, watching the butterflies flutter, flutter, flutter. He'd had an opportunity to lock gazes with Rahzar after Donnie strapped him in, to see the pain, the terror, the desperate plea for forgiveness in the other mutant's face. He's not sure how much it's done for him yet.

Whatever Rahzar's seeing, it's got him rolling his eyes about like crazy, as if he's looking for something. Whatever it is, he won't find it here, not with the pressurized mushrooms pumping down his throat and nostrils. Mikey knows all too well how easy it is to get lost in Humungous Fungus' fear toxin.

"I can't get believe you made _fear toxin,"_ he muses, shaking his head. "And I can't believe I never set if off."

"I hid it under the floor just for that eventuality," Donnie says, making himself more comfortable in his chair. "And it's not _fear toxin_ , it's the result of years of work on a highly potent sample of unique mutant biology transmuted into a gaseous form for the purpose of--"

"Whatever, Scarecrow." Mikey smirks.

Donnie rolls his eyes, but whatever rejoinder he's got in mind is cut off when Rahzar lets out a particularly piercing wail. It's muffled by the rag jabbed in his mouth, of course, but they both find themselves stiffening and glancing at the door.

Their brothers are asleep or meditating right now, blissfully unaware of what's going on in Donnie's lab. They didn't bat an eye when Mikey asked to be set up in Donnie's lab tonight, or when he asked to be--supposedly--alone with his most sympathetic brother. An ugly part of Mikey wonders if they're relieved for a chance to leave him alone, to not have to look at Mikey's bandages and see the proof off their terrible failure.

But it's not their fault, is it? _He_ was the one who got stupid and wandered off, _he_ was the one who almost got everyone killed while they were rushing to save him, _he_ who was the one who made Rahzar laugh and laugh as he--

"Hey," Mikey stiffens, than relaxes as Donnie gently reaches over to squeeze his hand. "Come back to me."

Mikey nods jerkily, keeping his eyes locked on Rahzar, on the tears trickling down his skeletal cheeks and the painful, jerky motions of his ruined limbs. He's letting little whimpers now, his muscles trembling as if he's trying to break free or curl up into a ball.

There's a creek as Donnie comes to sit besides Mikey in the cot, moving oh so carefully to avoid hurting his fragile body. Mikey leans into him grateful, letting his brother put a very careful around his shoulders.

He hates being treated like glass; everybody does. But sometimes there are times when you really do feel like glass, and then it's nice to have a person who recognizes it.

"How do you feel?" his brother asks.

"Calm, I guess." Mikey shrugs. "Which is weird for me." He lets out an empty little laugh.

"That's good," Donnie says, stroking his arm. "Calm is good." He doesn't nee to say that calm is better than shrieking and screaming at imaginary monsters, at curling up in the bed and muttering to himself, at having to restrained bfrom tearing off his bandages because _I can still feel him._

He still remembers Donnie holding him after one of those episodes, whispering into his earslit _Do you want him gone?_ Mikey hadn't hesitated before nodding.

Then he'd been asleep and then Donnie had been dragging Rahzar into the lab by the ankle, the mutant limp and twitching from whatever trap his brother had caught on him. "I had to make some changes to fit him into the trunk," Donnie had explained, as Rahzar's bones _clinked_ in a way Mikey really hadn't heard them before.

Mikey had watched in silence as Donnie got Rahzar into the chair, as Rahzar woke up and started letting out muffled sobs for mercy, as Donnie laid out various schemes--dissection, electrocution, various forms of water torture.

He'd chosen the fungus, because he'd wanted Rahzar to get a taste of what it was like to have your brain tear itself apart. He'd sat and watched the gas flow down the tube in a stream of purple-tinted fog, waiting to feel guilty, waiting for the inevitable urge to take it back. It didn't come.

"When do you think his heart will stop?" he asks, trying to remember how long they've been sitting there.

"Not sure. It's hard to predict even with normal hearts." Donnie brushes a soft hand over his head. "Do you want me to turn up the pressure? We could restart it later if you change your mind...."

"Nah, it's fine." Mikey leans into Donnie's side, breathing in his brother's scent. "Donnie?"

"Yeah?"

"You think Leatherhead will want me after this?" The words come of their own free will, and Mikey feels his brother tense. "I mean, what we did--what we're doing--and what _Rahzar_ did to me, I....I...." _You're ruined,_ an ugly voice whispers in his head.

"You're a survivor," Donnie says firmly, as if he's heard the voice, or maybe he just heard Mikey so well. "You had a chance to regain control, and you took it. You're going to get through this, as much as it sucks, because _we're_ going to help you, and because you're strong enough to take anything. And if Leatherhead can't see any of that, he's just crazy."

For the first time in a while, Mikey feels his lips curling up in a smile. A small smile, a weak one, but a smile. "Thanks for the pep-talk, dude," he murmurs, patting Donnie's arm.

"Anytime."

They watch for a while longer, as Rahzar's back arches and his teeth snap from gnashing together. The smell of piss feels the air and Donnie rolls his eyes, grabbing some freshener from his desk and spraying it around their heads.

"You're to have to clean that up, you know," Mikey reminds him.

"In a minute, okay? My feet are killing me." Donnie waves his toes in the air and Mikey lets out an exaggerated groan, waving his hand in front of his nose.

He stops mid-motion, peering through his fingers as Rahzar gags, twitches, and spits out another tooth. "You know," he says thoughtfully, watching the tooth skitter across the floor and bounce off a cot leg, "This is all really, really fucked-up. Even by our standards."

"We're just responding to a fucked-up reality, little brother," Donnie says, patting on the head. He's got a point, Mikey supposes, so he lets himself lean into the touch.

In front of them, Rahzar lets out an inhuman wail as his lip splits, blood mixing with the white gas and butterfly wings. Mikey narrows his eyes again so he can watch the tubes pulse, the butterflies flutter.

"Donnie?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

It takes two more hours for Rahzar to die.


	14. Needles And Tongues (Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fierce love, bright love (love that might destroy you).

"Donnie?"

He's not listening. He's not looking. He doesn't care, he doesn't even need to wear his headphones (he can't, he has to keep his ears clear from when Mikey comes back from his mission and Raph comes back from wherever the hell he disappeared to in a blaze of black eyes and teeth).

"Donnie, _please._ Listen to me. We can work this out!"

A lie. Always a lie, because Leo never begs for anything from anyone (except, maybe, from someone he respects ~~or truly, deeply fears~~ ).

"It hurts. I--I can't _breathe._ " That's lie. He _knows_ it's a lie, he was careful with the chains, he was careful with _everything,_ but now he's starting to wonder if maybe he should check to make sure they're not too tight--no, no, that's what it's waiting for.

"Donnie...." A rattle of chains. The words are taut, frightened, as if the speaker is trying so hard to be brave, to keep their voice from shaking. "Donnie, please, whatever I did, I'm _sorry."_

It hurts, it _physically_ hurts, to hear his brother speak like that. To hear that fear, that pain, and worse than that to hear it directed at _him._ But....

"You're not my brother," he says firmly. He forces himself to turn, to see black eyes looking at him--but then he sees trembling lips, tear-stained cheeks, and has to turn back around. "You're not my brother," he repeats to his equipment, to the syringe he can't use because sedatives might cause a chemical imbalance and mess up his cure (but oh, how he wants to). "You're _not."_

A horrified gasp. "Donnie, how can you _say_ that?"

Donnie almost shatters the tube he's holding, but grits his teeth and forces himself to relax. _Not real not real not real._

 ~~Leo~~ the monster takes a few deep breaths, as if calming himself down, and when he speaks his voice is more relaxed; the voice of a big brother who's just concerned for a little one. "Look, just....we can talk about this. Whatever happened, whatever you're feeling, we can figure it out. I _promise_ , Donnie."

There's so much _compassion_ in his words, and suddenly Donnie can't it take it anymore. He tugs on protective gloves, grabs a spare piece of cloth from a nearby drawer and turns back to his brother, the fabric balled up in his shaking fist.

Leo will forgive him for this (right?), but he has to work, he _needs_ quiet, he needs to be able to think without feeling like his soul might split in two--

"No, please!" (Not-)Leo is staring up at him, big black eyes huge with terror, cowering up against the wall. "Anything but that, I'll suffocate, I'll go crazy, don't, _please,_ I'll be quiet, please, I'll be so good..."

"It's not you," Donnie says firmly, keeping a careful eye on the thing wearing his brother's body. If it bites him he's fucked, another good reason to gag him. "It's not you, why would you ever _think_ I'd believe that?" A part of him dies, a part of him looks at those tears and wants to tear his own heart out, but... "You're got _black eyes,_ for crying out loud!"

"W-what are you talking about?" Not-Leo stares up at him, confusion mixing with fear.

For a heartbeat Donnie's blood runs cold, but he shakes his head firmly. "You _know_ what I'm talking about. That egg infected you with something, you _bit_ Raph _,_ and we had to chain you up for your own good."

"Bit _Raph?"_ ~~Leo~~ it sounds sickened at the very possibility. "He left with Mikey and Sensei on the scavenging trip. Donnie, did....did Shredder infect you with something?"

No. No. "You're trying to manipulate me," Donnie spits out. He glances down at his hand, _willing_ it to stop shaking, to leave him steady enough to gag his brother and keep working.

"Donnie....." And it's not his brother, but it's his brother's _voice,_ the voice of someone he loves and trusts and has quietly looked up to for as long as he can remember. Donnie can't face him. "Donnie, please. Let me go, let me help you."

Donnie's feet twitch towards him on instinct, but he grits his teeth and forces himself to stay still. Where the hell is Mikey? He needs his brother to come back, he needs him to look at those eyes and _agree_ that this is real, that he's not imagining the memory of spit-slicked lips and vicious teeth.

"A toxin of some kind...." Those eyes narrow, just like Leo's do in his Planning Moments. "To leave make you think your loved ones were turning into monsters..." He sucks in a breath. "Jesus, Donnie, that must be _awful."_

Donnie shakes his head wildly, mask tails flapping. "I'm not imagining anything, okay? Just...." He's scrambling for an answer, hating himself for feeling doubt (but there's a little voice in his head saying he should ashamed for ignoring his leader, instead). "Look, if you're Leo, you'll let me gag you--"

"So you keep working on whatever the hell that is?" Leo--wait, the monster, it's the monster--jerks his (its its its) head towards Donnie's beakers. "So you can inject me with God knows what?"

"I'd never hurt yo--my brother. The real Leo would know that."

"And the real Leo would know not to let you do something you'd regret." His brother leans towards him, and how can those terrible eyes look so _warm?_ "Please, Donnie. I know you're scared. But I need you to pull together and do the right thing. _Let me go_ and I swear on our father's life that I will do you no harm."

It's a trick. He's being manipulated. He has to be. If it was an enemy he wouldn't be listening to any of this bullshit--

But it's not any enemy, is it? It's a piece of his heart, kneeling in chains, loving and desperate and so clearly terrified _._ He could ask it questions only Leo would know...but no, if it knows about Shredder it might enough infected enough of his brother's brain to know _everything._

Or wait, what if it's infected too much of Leo's brain for him to ever come back, or what if it-he's not lying and Donnie really did something terrible, what if he's been poisoned or simply lost his mind, what if Mikey's on a scavenging trip or dead, what if he kills his brother, what if Leo never trusts him again, what if Leo is unfixable or Donnie is, what if they're _already_ dead he _killed_ them what if he's talking to a hallucination or he's _not_ or or or or or

"Breathe, Donnie."

He's on his knees, shaking, the cloth dropped on the floor. He's in a vulnerable position, head hanging low, in perfect range for an attack, but Leo's just sitting there, looking at him. "It's okay," he says. "Deep breaths, Donnie. Deep breaths." He takes slow, exaggerated breaths, his eyes closed.

_Stop thinking of it as Leo you stupid fucker but who else would breath with you and why isn't he hurting you and and_

"Breathe." More deep breaths. The eyes are still closed. He needs to see, he needs to _know,_ and he needs to forget how much Leo looks like he's just meditating, even with the chains.

He's breathing; shallowly, but he's breathing. He's still on his hands and knees, trembling all over. He's _scared_ and he's _confused_ and _exhausted_ and he's all crashing down on him that one way or another he's _alone,_ with either a monster in front of him or his own inner demons.

"Donnie." That voice is so reasonable, so gentle. Donnie would never admit this to anyone in a million years, but he thinks Leo can be softer than Splinter, sometimes, easier to listen to. "Donnie, you don't have to let me go. I get that you're afraid."

He is, of so many things, but hard as he tries he can't fear that voice. Not really.

"Could you loosen my hands, just a little? It hurts. You can hold your bo while you do it, if you want. Then I'll shut up and let you work, and after a while we'll see if you're still feeling like....this."

A part of him whispers that this is the oldest trick in the book, that he needs to draw in more oxygen before he can think clearly, that he should gag his brother while he has the opportunity. But the rest of the Donnie, the part that chases after April O'Neil despite knowing precisely how bad his chances are, the part of him that needs barely any encouragement to doubt himself, the part of him that trusts his big brother implicitly....

That part says, "O-okay."

He staggers to his feet and reaches for his bo, relishing the safe weight of it in his hand. _Just a little,_ he assures himself. He'll loosen his chains just enough to see if he can test his theory. A good scientist is willing to take risks, and besides, if he's not careful he could end up seriously damaging Leo's circulation no matter who's in his body.

These are the things he tells himself as he goes to kneel at Leo's side, bo held at a somewhat awkward angle, fiddling at the chains with his free hand. He can see bruises starting to form on green skin, it was lucky he got to him when he did--

When his brother lurches back into a vicious headbutt, Donnie's honestly not sure how surprised he is.

He falls, shell clattering against steel with a grunt, as Leo's hands tears free of the loosened chains. His brother's (the monster's?) fingers wrap around the bo while Donnie's still trying to sit up.

Donnie looks up, but his vision is blurry and he hasn't figured out whether he's seeing blue eyes or black ones before the stick comes crashing down.


	15. Empty Wrappers And Dead Trees (Brown)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On loving a ghost.

He's not grieving for Splinter, not as much as he could have been. In a way he's already finished the grieving process for who his father _used_ to be, before he became the kind of person who'd throw innocent men to criminals or beat his children for standing up to him. He mourns the good times, yes, but he doesn't even try to forget the bad ones, and it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it could have.

If his grief for his father is a dull ache, Mikey's _other_ grief is a vicious little knife, poking and prodding at the tender skin of his heart. He might feel okay for minutes or hours, he might even start to hate himself for not feeling too badly, then he'll see or hear something that brings it all searing back and he's shocked at himself, wonders how he could ever possibly _want_ this pain.

He tries to hide from it in his bed, to bury himself in blankets and wrap himself tight until it almost feels like he's being cradled in Slash's strong arms. Almost. When hunger eventually forces him to the kitchen, he finds himself staring at the chocolates in the refrigerator, the ones he was going to give to Slash when they eventually went out to the farm together.

Mikey remembers plotting it out--a swim in the river, a walk in the woods, perhaps a bit of making out in. the field. He'd make Slash crowns and chains of flowers, he'd feed him those chocolates by hand, he'd make him read books in that big deep voice of his--

The icy air burns in his skin and his head is full of screams and _he can't look at those things,_ he has to get rid of them _now_

But Slash, who had hoarded every little scrap and fragment of sugary goodness he could find like the precious things they were, would never forgive him for that. So instead he eats them, every one, until his throat burns and his head swims and he finds himself throwing up in the bathroom.

Leo kneels besides him and rubs his back, his hand warm and gentle and totally useless. That hand can't bring Slash back, can it?

Can't erase the memories of his beloved being reduced to a wild beast again and again, can't take away the sight of Slash waving goodbye while Sally carted him off to his doom (a cruel, irrational part of him hates her for that, hard as he tries to cut it out), can't take away the pictures of the shambling clones Bishop replaced him with before _they_ died too, right when Mikey was thought he might just get Slash back again.

His big brother's capable hands can't do anything, really, anything that will fix _this._ It's not the first time Mikey's been confronted with the fact that his big brother can't do everything, but that doesn't make any of this easier.

"I loved him," Mikey says, when the toilet is filled to the brim with barely-digested chocolates and stomach acid.

"Father?"

"Slash." This is the first time he's confessed this to anyone, including Slash. Neither of them dared to use the L-word during their occasional trysts, their childish fumbling in stairwells or on rooftops, in tunnels and library basements. They used other words, words like "beautiful" and "favorite" and "wonderful" and "sweet," but they never mentioned love.

He's not sure why. Fear, maybe? The idea that what they had would melt under too much pressure, like cotton candy disappearing in your mouth? He's not sure. All he knows is that he regrets not saying it before (he regrets a lot of stuff).

Leo's breath catches. "Oh, _Mikey."_ He's being pulled into his brother's lap, warm green limbs soaking up his tears. "I'm so sorry."

 _Sorry doesn't help,_ he wants to say, but he's crying too hard to speak.

Later, Leo takes him back to bed, tucks him in, kisses on the forehead. He doesn't try and lie by telling him that everything will be all right, which Mikey is quietly grateful for.

"Leo?" he asks, voice quiet and careful.

"Yeah?"

"I...I tried to dream of Mother last night. And the night before that. And the night before that."

His brother didn't say anything.

"Do you think she's okay?" _Tell she hasn't moved on. Tell me she didn't leave when we needed her most._

"I don't know," Leo says. Mikey isn't sure whether this is a lie or not, but he hates both possibilities. He curls up in a ball and presses his head between his thighs, unable to look at his brother. Leo gets in bed with him anyway and pulls him close. He's too small to be Slash, too smooth or rough in all the wrong places, but Mikey tells himself it's a good likeness anyway.

He wakes up, and Leo's gone, so he goes back to sleep and tries to dream of Slash. Sleep offers nothingness, which is good, but it'd be a lot better if it offered Slash, too. Where is he? Mikey doesn't dare ask Leo, doesn't want to acknowledge the possibility that Slash might have left the way their parents did.

He wakes up to hear Donnie telling him he should get up and ignores him. He wakes up, goes to the bathroom, goes back to sleep. He wakes up hungry, but the kitchen is a minefield he won't enter, so he waits for Leo to come shove soup down his throat and say things Mikey can't really focus on, and then he goes back to sleep.

But sleep yields nothing, while the waking world yields even less...until the day Mikey wakes up to find a chocolate wrapper on the floor. He sits up, blinking in surprise, only to find another one in the doorway.

_What?_

Thanks to his fucked-up sleeping schedule, it's somehow early morning, and everyone else is either in bed or not in the mood to communicate. Normally he'd join them, but he's _sure_ he threw all the wrappers in the trash can, and even if he hadn't someone would have managed to clean them up by now. So what are they doing here?

 _Slash would have cleaned up the mess_ , a voice whispers in his head, and it's the first time he's thought of his almost-boyfriend that doesn't sting like _fuck_ in a long while. So Mikey rises with a groan, hugging himself, trying to remember the last time he got up beyond the occasional bathroom trip.

He picks his way over to the wrapper and snatches it up, before going to get the one in the doorway. He's just about to head back to the trash can in his room when he spots the wrapper at the far end of the hall, near the stairs.

It's not until he gets that wrapper, and follows a trail of them down the steps, and finds himself being slowly led through the kitchen and towards the door, that he allows himself to hope. If Slash is _here_ , even it's just a dream...but no, he won't take that risk. Not now, not after his hopes have been dashed so many times by so many people.

Still, he follows the wrappers, and when he finds one jammed in the side of the door a part of him's not surprised to find a trail of them leading off the porch. He dumps the ones he has into the kitchen trash and shrugs on a hoodie, shivering as the cool morning door hits his skin.

Mikey follows the glittering trail across the yard, bending to scoop each new one into his pockets, muttering to himself about littering. Still, as he enters the soothing green shadow of the woods he finds a creaky little smile creeping across his lips. He didn't realize how much he _missed_ harmless little adventures like this one, even if it's not real.

He's not sure how long he walks, only that eventually his pockets are bulging with wrappers and his out-of-practice legs are starting to ache. Not one does it occur to him to stop, though; not until he's lead to a tangle of dead branches where the trail just....ends.

It's a surprise, almost as surprising as the lightning-hot panic that burns through his lungs. He's spinning like a top, faster and faster, rubbing his eyes and scanning the forest for the glint of a wrapper he must have missed, _stupid little Mikey always misses things,_ fuck fuck _fuck_

He completes another spin, and Slash is standing in front of him.

Mikey's mouth drops open, but before he can say anything like _What took you so long?_ or _This isn't real_ or _I love you love you love you_ he's being pulled into a big great hug, the kind he's been missing for so long, scooped into the air and tucked up right against Slash's chest.

It's the exact kind of safety and security he's been waiting for, that same kind of precious warmth, and he cries because he knows it can't last. Their father left, their mother left, Slash left, and even if the leaving wasn't entirely their choice Mikey knows them of them will come back the way he wants them to. And it _hurts,_ it hurts so bad it almost drowns out the good.

"Mikey," Slash whispers, rocking him back and forth. "Mikey, Mikey, Mikey." He whispers the words like a prayer, waves of _love_ and _loss_ and _sorry_ rolling off him with of each one until Mikey thinks he might shatter from it.

"I miss you," he grits out. "I missed you so fucking _much."_

"I'm sorry," Slash says. "I tried to come back, I couldn't find you, and now..."

"You can't stay." Mikey murmurs, trying to choke back his tears. "It's okay. No one can stay."

"Some do," Slash says, peering at him with those deep dark eyes.

"Not me," Mikey shoots back, shaking his head with a burst of self-mocking laughter. "I...things went to _shit_ when you left, and the first chance I got I broke. I can't do this, I can't....I can't _survive_ without you. I can't go out, I can't go back there," (there being New York, there being the world as a whole, there being the community of freewheeling ninja Mikey Hamato) "....I'm scared, I....I can't do this."

"You will," Slash whispers. "You will, Mikey, because you're one of the strongest and bravest people I know, and you have brothers to help you, and you've got a heart big enough to take on the _world._ You're going to get through this, and one day you'll get a chance to love again."

"Never." He's not being dramatic; he knows how much love _hurts_ now, and he can't imagine putting himself through that again.

"You will." Slash plants a tender kiss on his head. "I love you, Mikey, and I know you can make it."

"But you won't be _there!"_ he wails. "Just in my dreams, if I'm lucky _,_ and that'll just make it hurt more because it won't be enough and I never even told you I loved you..."

"I always knew," Slash rumbles, and then they're kissing. Mikey moans at the taste of chocolate and kindness, pressing up against Slash until he can barely breath and the other turtle's shell feels like it might bruise his skin. He doesn't care.

When they finally come up for air, Mikey's quivering all over, but he's stopped crying. "I'm," he rasps. "So, so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

"I wasn't there when you needed me, I _left_ you--"

"Stop." Slash's voice is a harsh, firm rumble, that kind that could make Mikey's breath catch or his toes curl in a different setting. "You didn't do anything wrong, and anyone who tells you otherwise--even Hob--is a _liar."_

Mikey looks down at the name, at the memory of the big angry cat who swaggered into Slash's funeral and set about ruining everything. "You meant what you said to Hob?" he asks. "About not holding back anymore?"

"I meant that the people I love should do whatever it takes to stay alive," Slash says, gently lifting Mikey's chin so their eyes meet again. "And that they should remember they _deserve_ to keep living, no matter what."

Mikey shakes his head. "You think I'm supposed to, what, just get over this?"

"It won't be easy," Slash says. "It'll be long, and hard, and we'll only be able to talk so often, until I get the hang of this." Mikey flinches at the words. "But you'll make it. You _always_ make it. And I'll keep my eye on you for as long as you need."

"I'm scared," Mikey murmurs, not quite able to meet his eyes.

"I know," Slash says, his eyes deep with understanding. So much of his life was full of fear, so much of his life was about _facing_ it, and look where it got him. But Mikey doesn't bother mentioning that, because Slash would just try to convince them both that Mikey will be different, and Mikey doesn't want to wonder about whether it's a lie.

He sniffles again. A little voice in his head whispers that he's running out of time and he presses back up against Slash, breathing in his scent. "Please don't leave again," he whispers. "I'm so _tired_ of people leaving."

"I won't leave," Slash whispers. "Not really, not in the way that matters. I got you a gift to remind you of that."

"Wha--"

But Slash is already pulling him into another kiss, this one soft as rose petals where the first was desperately clutching ivy. Mikey takes a deep, hungry breath of his scent, his touch, this feeling of safety...

Then he's standing in an empty clearing, pockets empty of wrappers, nothing except for a heap of dead trees barring his path to show it. He tries and fails to suck in a breath, feels himself about to crumple again

 _Klunk_.

Mikey freezes, hands going to the nunchucks he forgot to bring with him. Living may hurt, but he's not letting some monster take him, not after all he's been through. He _won't,_ he--

A confused, angry meow rises up behind the woodpile, and Mikey's blood runs cold.

He may be out of practice, but a woodpile is no match for his rad ninja skills. He's somersaulting over the pile in a heartbeat, landing lightly in front of a furry little creature who yowls at him and bares its sharp teeth.

"Wait!" Mikey falls back on his butt, raising his hands in surrender. It's a move that Doctor Doo-Raph would possibly role his eyes at, but the cat freezes mid-growl and blinks, studying him.

It's a beautiful little cat, even with twigs and leaves tangled in its lovely fur and claws that could do with a trimming. Mikey looks into his eyes and sees something that's almost....familiar, something deep and thoughtful.

Mikey's breath catches. "Slash?" he asks, fingers trembling.

His hopes don't have time to build before they're dashed as the cat stares at him blankly--only to rise again in the next heartbeat, because even if it's not Slash, it's still a gift from him. A beautiful, impossible gift from a ghost, and maybe another soul for him to take care of while his own heals.

A reminder that he's not alone, that as long as it takes and as it much as it hurts, he will always have someone by his side if he only reaches out.

"Hey," he says, extending his hand ever so slightly. The cat looks him up and down, but doesn't bite or run. "You're looking kind of nasty, buddy. Want to go home with me, get a brush?"

The cat gathers its feet under itself and stretches its neck out just a little, studying him.

"You scared?" Mikey asks. "That's fine, it's okay to be scared." He sits back, letting his shell rest against a tree. He has all the time in the world.

He thinks he can hear Slash whispering with him when he says, "We can be scared together. And that makes it easier, doesn't it?"


End file.
